Storytellers: Six-pack wonder

Storytellers is the closest kids can get to a six pack. Each volume, in a colourful cardboard box, comes with five storybooks and a VCD.

Storytellers is a product of an association between local publishers Orient Longman and Bookbox, an American company which has sourced stories from around the world. This means the stories are not the hackneyed ones served out to children over the generations.

The read-along method helps a child relate phonetic sounds with visual subtitles, thereby accelerating the development of his reading skills.

The CD has other interactive parts, too – puzzles like Join The Dots and Sort The Jumbled Pieces, for instance. One can also take the printouts of outlined pictures for colouring.

Sudeshna Banerjee
The Telegraph, Kolkatta, 9 April 2008