Plagiarism of My birthday cake

I am a regular reader of Young World and look forward to every single issue. However, it pains me to see writers copying from other sources and sending the copied material under their own names. This is with reference to the story “My birthday cake” by Hana Marfani (YW, February 23).

The story has clearly been plagiarised from the book Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary in which Ramona throws a doll into her sister Beezus’s birthday cake in the oven while enacting Hansel and Gretel (Chapter 6 page 152-159).

The writer has changed the names and shortened the excerpt but has basically copied the whole thing. This is saddening as Young World provides a platform for young writers to express their originality and creativity. I strictly discourage writers to copy stuff and advice them to work on their own ideas.

Eshal Siddiqui,

Bahawalpur

Teaching kids news

This is with reference to the website review “Teaching kids news” by Asif Ali (YW, February 16).

Children are the pillars of our country’s success. They should be aware of what is going on around them. This website gives them a very nice platform to know about current affairs in a kid-friendly language. The good thing about this site is that it has many categories that user can get into without signing in. Furthermore, it helps to enhance children’s knowledge and encourages them to think critically.

Mahek Parwani,

Ghotki

Family

The word ‘family’ is a six letter word, but it may have more than six hundred definitions and the central point of all would be a support system that stands with you in all matters.

A family is like a flower where parents are the soft and beautiful petals which provide protection to the anthers and filaments (children), no matter how numerous they are. The family is like sunshine in winters and clouds in the summers. These are relations having the ability to sacrifice for each other. Make your family happy by doing little deeds, respect each member and love them.

Kashaf Khurram,

Multan

The apology train

This is with reference to the story “The apology train” by Linta Mustafa (YW, February 2). It is necessary to apologise if you have hurt someone or made a mistake in order to acknowledge to them that you realise your mistake.

However, saying just ‘sorry’ usually is not always enough, it is better to explain why you feel you are sorry and that you realise you were wrong. This way, the other person will be happy to know that you actually mean it.

Abdul Wasay Abro,

Karachi

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 9th, 2019