Komal is seven. She has been at Bridge School for two years.
Last winter she stood up at the front of the classroom, opened a small Hindi picture book about a girl and a goat, and began to read.
She got to the end of the first page. Her mother, sitting in the back, started to cry. Komal kept reading. She got to the end of the book.
“Her mother had never seen a book read out loud by someone in her own family. We had not thought about how rare that simple thing might be.”
Komal
After she sat down, her mother said something to us we have not stopped thinking about. She said: 'I have never heard a book read out loud, in this room, by someone in my family. I did not know my child could do that.'
The book was twelve pages. It took eight minutes. It changed something for both of them that we are still trying to find the right words for.
Shared with permission. Names retained at the request of the storyteller.
