Books, plays, puppet-shows and other creative art forms can bring value to children and capture their
attention by being more entertaining than moralistic or instructional. This was the essence of \u2018The Fun
Industry\u2019 discussion held at the Cultural Forum yesterday (Friday, May 28) during the 12 th Sharjah
Children\u2019s Reading Festival (SCRF).
\u201cChildren come to the theatre to have fun, not to learn. Give them what they need. Authors all over the
world need to research the psychology of a child. What makes them dance, what makes them scared,
what makes them hate, what do they aspire to do? Authors need to be able to answer these critical
questions while creating content for children,\u201d said Dr. Hussein Ali Haref, Iraqi Artist and Academician
who has authored 30 plays and 13 puppet shows for kids.
\u201cThe ethical messages are already being delivered to kids by society, through their families and the
school,\u201d he added.
Agreeing with Dr Haref, American award-winning author and illustrator, Kevin Sherry, shared his
experience of interacting with school children by using costumes and puppets to create a lively
interactive atmosphere.
\u201cWhen I put on a bear-head costume, make them sing and start telling them jokes, they start having
fun and I get their attention. Once you have their attention, the child\u2019s mind becomes receptive to
whatever information you may want to give them,\u201d said the author of I’m the Biggest Thing in the
Ocean and The Yeti Files series.
With children moving towards getting their entertainment mostly from social media and digital
platforms these days, are playwriters and puppeteers concerned that these traditional forms of
entertainment may soon be replaced?
\u201cIt\u2019s good to be represented on digital platforms, but I think everyone knows there is a huge difference
between a child looking at something on a screen and them experiencing something in real life. When<\/p>\n\n\n\n
they interact with a live show, they come alive, it brings something out from inside of them,\u201d added
Kevin.
\u201cThis session is in person,\u201d Dr Haref continued. \u201cIf this session was online and you were home looking
at us through your screen, would it feel the same? Theatre is one of the oldest forms of art, and
despite movies and TV, it hasn\u2019t lost its charm. I don\u2019t think a child will ever lose their interest in a play
or a show regardless of what technology comes in future,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Books, plays, puppet-shows and other creative art forms can bring value to children and capture theirattention by being more entertaining than moralistic or instructional. This was the essence of \u2018The FunIndustry\u2019 discussion held at the Cultural Forum yesterday (Friday, May 28) during the 12 th SharjahChildren\u2019s Reading Festival (SCRF).\u201cChildren come to the theatre to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mirchmasala.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}