A childhood without books — that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy," Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren once said. Apart from being a journalist, Lindgren was best known for her children's book series that reflected her sheer disregard for conformity — moulding characters like Pippi Longstocking, Emil Svensson, and Karlsson of Karlsson-on-the-Roof. The Crazy Adventures of Pippi Longstocking aka Pippi Lambemoze ke Mazedaar Karnaame will be presented in English and Hindi this weekend by educator Priyanka Babbar of Small Tales Storytelling, who frequently conducts bilingual storytelling events.

Babbar will be playing Pippi, a super-humanly strong nine-year-old girl with carrot-coloured hair who loves doing brave things. "She wears her father's shoes and different coloured stockings. She doesn't stick to these notions of being a girl," Babbar tells us, while mentioning that Lindgren wrote the story when her own daughter was unwell.