An Alien in the Jam Factory is such a fun read! A book that celebrates ideas is the best kind of book to read with children. The very first page is filled with doodles and ideas--like a jam slice, which is like a cheese slice that you can put straight into a sandwich. What else can we do as we read the book? Food Ideas Create your own wacky jam recipe! Scooter, the protagonist of An Alien in the Jam Factory, creates wasp-repelling jam, Brussels sprout jam, cherry bomb jam and more. What can we make? What kind of jam do the children at my book club think will be fun and delicious? Waiting to find out! Alien Creative writing is an integral part of my book club for ages nine and ten, so let's imagine aliens of our own. If an alien landed in your balcony, what would you do? What problems would you face and how would you solve them? Would you … [Read more...]
Trunk Call for Ajju
Even when I read and reviewed Trunk Call for Ajju in June 2023, I knew it would be one of my book club reads soon enough. A book about children and animals always holds a special place in my heart, and elephants are extra special. Here's what we'll do as we read the book. Money-Making Ideas Children's business ideas are fascinating! If you had to raise money for a cause you believed in, what would you do? How do you think you could make money?Just like Making Millions and Amelia Bedelia Means Business, Trunk Call for Ajju is the perfect book to explore entrepreneurship! Talent Show Ajju and his best friend Karthik take part in a talent competition that they're determined to win. What would you do to win a talent show? In the past, at my book clubs, we've had all kinds of performances - piano, solving Rubik's cubes, the flute, recorder ... It's … [Read more...]
When the World Went Dark
I read When the World Went Dark one year after our first lockdown. And I wondered about including it at my book club. Grief is deeply personal. No one feels the way you feel. It almost feels unfair when people do.Even so, we do want to talk about our grief. Additionally, with any book, we take away what we want to take away from it. The lockdown, online classes and the fear of the virus are so real that I want children to read this, a book about their lived reality, one that acknowledges that not all adventures happen outdoors when we are free to run about and play. Book Discussion For When the World Went Dark, the discussion will lead the way. Children will want to talk about lockdown, loss, online school and more; I am sure of it. When the cook of one of the children at my book club caught covid, the child was so horrified he could not stop … [Read more...]
A Pinch of Magic
We've read Trouble with Magic at my book club; it's time to read the sequel! A Pinch of Magic is a fun read, full of surprises. I read and reviewed the book some time ago, and I'm excited to be introducing it to my book clubbers. Here's what we'll do with it. Innovative Address One of the first things that made me chuckle as I read A Pinch of Magic was the Maha Guru's highly accurate address. And this leads us to our first activity. How would you write your address if you did it in a similar fashion?I love linking screen time with the world around us. Looking around them, I want the children to tell me: what tree is closest to them? What is the shape of tree near the gate? How tall is the tree at the end of the lane? Together, we'll create an innovative address for each one of us! Label Design We thoroughly enjoyed creating different kinds … [Read more...]
The Diary as Story
In just a few weeks, yet another writing programme will come to an end! Yesterday was the third and last guest session of the season--a creative writing workshop with children's book author Sowmya Rajendran.I love it when guests reinforce something I've been talking about for a while. During yesterday's session, it was 'write what you know'. Of course, I do give children the opposite advice too--write what you don't know--but the point, for me, is to bring stories into familiar contexts.When Sowmya told us about how her book Mayil Will Not Be Quiet was born, she stressed that she and her co-author Niveditha Subramaniam wanted to write a book about being a child in India. What is it like to go to an Indian school? What sort of conversations do we have at home? This idea is well worth repeating, especially as most children continue to write stories about Michael and Felicity, who … [Read more...]
Sad Animal Facts
Did you know that frogs can close their ears? Or that anything a duckling meets within ten minutes of being born becomes its parent? (That reminds me of The Wild Robot, though the bird in the story is a gosling, not a duckling. Even so.) Those two aren't sad animal facts, though, are they?In fact, many of the sad animal facts in the book aren't exactly sad. It's the endearing way in which Brooke Barker presents them that makes you feel that way. Quirky, informative, and wholly entertaining, I found myself struck by every page, a collection of animal facts presented in a wholly unique style.The cover itself prepares you for the style of the book. The fact presented is simple: Cats can't taste sweet things. But the cartoon and speech bubble are what make it charming, for you have a cartoon cat saying, 'tell me about ice cream again.'Similarly, the back cover informs us that … [Read more...]
An Alien in the Jam Factory
There's something about book titles that can just grab your attention right away. An Alien in the Jam Factory is one of those.I often pick up books when I travel and when I was in Goa last month, I visited Literati for the first time. I browsed for quite a while before this book caught my attention, and I loved the premise.Scooter McLay is a genius. Thanks to his incredible inventions, McLay's jam is a phenomenal success. Whether it's wasp-repellent jam or the not-yet-very-successful Edible Jam Bubbles, each of Scooter's inventions sparkles. He has loving parents, he thoroughly enjoys inventing, and he's never going to let their rival Daffy Dodgy steal his secrets. It's all perfect. Except that he has no friends. No one is allowed into the top-secret factory. And for hygienic reasons, he cannot even have a pet.One day, however, an alien called Fizzbee crashes into the … [Read more...]
Stories: Comic-Page Style
What a rewarding session we had with Nandita Basu! At workshops like this one, I think I learn as much as the young writers who sign up.Step by step, Nandita led us through the creation of one page of narrative that brings together text and illustration in the style of a graphic novel. We launched straight into the workshop with an interesting prompt that made all of us think. We've all wronged someone at some point in our lives; there's been a time when we were needlessly nasty to someone who didn't deserve it. This formed the basis of the plot we went on to sketch over the next hour.Layouts, structure, characters, setting, conflict, emotion ... in a single hour, Nandita led us through the whole lot. How important is background when setting the context of our story? Is it all right to make stick figures rather than fully detailed characters? How large or small should the … [Read more...]
What Feelings Do When No One’s Looking
What Feelings Do When No One's Looking is such a gorgeous, whimsical book! Do our feelings live inside us, or do they go on journeys of their own? Or do they do both?Each page of this endearing picture book is beautifully written and beautifully illustrated. As I read about curiosity, joy, gratitude, anxiety, shame and more, I wondered about so many other feelings. And I found nearly each one addressed. Kindness calms storms, doesn't it? What else would it do for you? In me, I hope it reaches out and shares. It knows when to be silent, and when to speak.Seventy-two pages kept me reading, staring at the heart-warming illustrations. Quirky and lovely, believable and outlandish--What Feelings Do When No One's Looking is easily one of the loveliest picture books I've read this year!TitleWhat Feelings Do When No One's LookingAuthorIllustratorTina OziewiczAleksandra … [Read more...]
Heartstopper
I rarely write about books that are so popular, but I loved the Heartstopper series and I can't wait to see what happens next! Unlike most other books I've read, I came to the series through Netflix. I watched both seasons and was so drawn to the characters that I had to read the books. And the books were just as gorgeous. Yes, just as gorgeous, not more so--and again, this differs from my usual opinion on book to screen adaptations!Heartstopper traces the heart-warming relationship between Nick and Charlie, two high school students. Charlie is openly gay, but Nick has always thought of himself as heterosexual. What, then, is he to do with these feelings he's developing for Charlie?An authentic coming-of-age story, Heartstopper addresses heavy themes from sexuality to eating disorders and mental health, without ever seeming like a story with multiple agendas. As author Alice … [Read more...]