On June 2, 2026, at the Made In Play Summit, a book was launched and it belonged fully to the children who made it.
When people picked it up and began to read, they found themselves pulled back to their own childhood. From coming home dusty after spinning latoos, to cousins who teased them mercilessly mid-game, to the moment shoelaces came untied at exactly the wrong time. The book did what a good book always does: it held up a mirror. And the adults in the room saw themselves as children once more.
“I feel like I’m in kindergarten again”
“The colors are wonderful”
“I like that you have included voices not just from tier 1 cities but from small towns in India.”
Tania from Dream A Dream paused on a particular line, “my dream playtime is with all my friends and my teachers watching us play” and said: “What I’m hearing is the need for children to feel seen.”
Voices of Play: A National Play Manifesto By Children, Of Children and For Every Caring Adult is the result of a year of listening. It began on the International Day of Play, June 11, 2025, when Bachpan Manao in Collabaction with REACH India Collective and Shiksharth put out a nationwide invitation: to ask children, directly, what play means to them. 22 organisations across 10 states, ventured to find out.
And through play-based activities, drawings, songs, letters, neighbourhood maps, and skits, over 4,000 children answered.
Their responses came from anganwadis, zilla parishad schools, classrooms from cities, and villages. They came in dialects that resisted easy translation. The games that were named carried entire worlds inside them — Ghor-Ghor, Chikutkut, Vish Amrit.
Together, across 10 states and many languages, children arrived at a shared ask.
Safe play spaces. Playgrounds that aren’t broken. The right to play their own way, without adults leading them. Permission to play every day, not just sometimes.
And above all: adults who listen when they talk about play.
The material collected — drawings, poems, conversations, skits — was compiled and designed in Collabaction with Bookosmia into the book you can read today. The book is a record of what 4,000 children said, kept as close to their own words as possible. Even the illustrations, drawn by Samyuktha Udupa, are recreations of the children’s own drawings and artwork.
Click the button below to read the full book.
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