Creativity of children driven by superheroes
sharjah — An hour-long ‘Create Your Own Character’ session was part of the 10th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF), themed ‘Your Future… Just a Book Away’.
Young children let their imaginations run wild when they attended the interactive session on the second day of the festival. When Matt Robertson, author and illustrator of children’s books, read out his first story on superheroes, “Super Stan”, to a group of children, it quickly drew their attention.
From Superman to Spiderman, the children, aged six to 10, excitedly shouted out their favourite superhero’s name, before they listened with great interest to Robertson’s story lesson. “The moral is you don’t have to have superpowers to be special,” he told the children. “Just by being kind and helping your brother, sister or friend, you can be super.”
The children cheered as Robertson introduced his next story, FluffyWuffy. Once complete, the children were given the chance to create a new character.
The children were eager to start, jumping and cheering about what features their character should have. Following their requests,
Encouraging creativity from a young age would make children take it forward into adulthood and into their professional career.” Matt Robertson, author and illustrator, children’s books
Robertson created a girl, with long straight hair and “superpants”. His character was able to fly, run fast, help others, be kind and have magic skills. The children filled the room with energy, standing and screaming out potential superhero names, before deciding on Super Lisa.
Robertson said, in many cases, people tend to forget the importance of creativity, when a child reaches a certain age. “Encouraging creativity from a young age would make children take it forward into adulthood and into their professional career. It just makes you think of things differently and think outside the box rather than thinking down a straight line,” he said.
The festival’s events span several programmes, under the main themes of Kids Activities, Cultural Programmes, Cultural Café, Kids’ Creative Café, Social Media Café and Cookery Corner.