Everybody knows that writing a book takes time. Sometimes (is it especially so with me?), it takes quite a long time. I wrote Sisters at New Dawn six years ago. 2014. Of course, this meant that in the last edit, I had to make lots of changes in it to keep up with the times. For instance, I […]
International Mother Language Day
All kinds of thoughts come to my mind as I think of the term mother language. I love the fact that so many languages exist. I love the celebration of language as both art and skill. Yet, working as I do with children and adults in diverse environments, I can’t help seeing other implications.On the […]
Listen to the Moon
I keep saying that with Michael Morpurgo, you can’t go wrong. Once more, with Listen to the Moon, I realised the truth of that. Had it been almost any other writer, I would have been daunted by the thickness of the book and the idea of beginning to read it when I know I’m busy. But Michael Morpurgo? […]
Ink
More often than not, fantasy serves as an allegory of the world we live in. Sometimes, the allegory is clearer than at other times, and I suppose part of that is cultural. For instance, when I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, I didn’t know enough to make the obvious connections. With Ink, it was different. […]
Secrets of a Sun King
The first book I read by Emma Carroll was The Girl Who Walked on Air, and I loved it enough for it to have been one of the top ten middle-grade books I read in 2018. As a child, I devoured Galliano’s Circus and I picked up the book with nothing in mind other than the fun of exploring another, different […]
World Read Aloud Day 2020
Five days late, but why can’t every day be read aloud day? I happened to have a session with my Writers’ Club on World Read Aloud Day, so each of the girls chose something to read. It was delightful! Above all, I was struck by how well most of them read, without burying their faces […]
Books I Read in January 2020
I wrote already about the three hOle books I read, as well as about The Lilliputians. But there’s so much more, as always, especially as I was travelling! Instead of doing one post per book, here’s a list of books I read and loved. Neel on Wheels Neel on Wheels is a lovely picture book written by Lavanya […]
The Lilliputians
Street-smart Tilly ropes Poesy in to audition for the Lilliputians, a children’s theatre group that is to travel to America. Poesy qualifies, only to discover that the world of acting and singing is rather different from everything she had dreamed it would be. For one, it seems that everyone cannot be friends with everyone else. […]
Three hOle Books
Who doesn’t love a hole in a book? I love the idea of the hole, and I do wish it were possible to make the holes part of every illustration! I’m sure the illustrator would probably find that rather restrictive, but even so, I delighted in each picture that used the hole in some way. […]
Bangalore 2020
Bangalore is probably among my favourite cities in the world. I love the weather, I love the trees (even though so many have been cut), and most of all, I love the mood of the city. As a child, I used to spend every summer there, at my grandparents’. Now, I continue to go there […]
A Day in Luxembourg City
The strangest thing about visiting Europe in the winter is how late the sun rises. In France, it was bewildering. Pre-dawn hours, to me, should be unearthly. But 8 a.m. in December is still pre-dawn! The lovely thing about the late sunrise in Luxembourg, however, was that I had a table at the window and […]
Luxembourg – A Train and a Bus
More than once, we went to the station to check if our TGV from Paris Gare de l’Est to Luxembourg would run. We went first to Bouray, and were told to check at Paris. When we went to Montparnasse, we went to the station there. Our train, we were told, was ‘sure to run’, despite […]
Christmas – and Food
Is it possible to write about France and not talk about the food? Much more plastic conscious than ever before, I didn’t buy any of the little cups of fruit yoghurt, or the chocolate mousse at the supermarkets, or anything that stood there on the stands in single-use plastic. But staying in a French family […]
Chartres
I visited Chartres last about ten years ago. When I told my French family that, they were concerned. Would I like to go to the same place again? Should we try to do something else instead? Was there something else I had in mind? I shook my head. I remembered how struck I was by […]
Paris
I have so many stories about Paris by night. During the exchange programme, we were sorely disappointed because Paris by night turned out to be just Paris by evening because we went in May and were told we couldn’t stay too late. As a result, as soon as the lights of Paris started coming on, […]
Travelling to France during the Strikes
Only yesterday I read about Paris transport being set to return to normal after a 45-day strike. 45 days. It’s a long time. For part of this time, we were in France too, and there, we learned about why these strikes are important to so many people. Despite my faltering, rusty French, we spoke about […]
My Year in Travel
I’ve seen and experienced so much this year! I brought 2019 in in beautiful Pench, shivering in the cold and rejoicing in the sight of a jackal and a leopard amongst so many other wonderful wild animals. Later the same month, we travelled to Sikkim and Kolkata, a city I love. I also wrote a […]
Top Ten: Young Adult Books
Being a young adult is to inhabit a complex and confusing world. When books address this phase of life beautifully, they can be breathtaking. Here are my top ten YA books of 2019. Stargirl Writer: Jerry SpinelliPublisher: Laurel Leaf Thinking about Stargirl makes me smile, for the character of Stargirl is impossibly sweet, impossibly wonderful. […]
Top Ten: Middle-Grade Books
Narrowing down to my top ten middle-grade books is always the hardest of all! Some of these books are younger than others, as always, because age ranges are hard to define. A few of these would be borderline chapter books; a few would be borderline young adult. The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop Writer: Clare BaldingIllustrator: […]
Top Ten: Chapter Books
Calling all the books that I’ve listed here ‘chapter books’ is perhaps unfair. Some are quite a bit longer than others. I’m uncomfortable defining books on the basis of age too, as reading levels differ widely even within one school, let alone across schools, areas and countries. I think, broadly, this list comprises books that […]