Isn't the name itself delightful? Mumbelievable is such a fun word!The Mumbelievable Challenge, true to its name is a lovely read. It's one of those rare books that is part of a series but does not require you to read the first one first! In fact, I didn't even know that this was the second Dadventure (another fun word) until I started writing this post.Mum has a challenge for Holly and her dad - a screen-free five days in a log cabin. Not only does Holly have to live without access to any kind of screen, but she also finds that her mum has set a challenge for her to complete each day. What starts off as a drag ends up being fun and even exciting, especially when Holly meets Zeb, who is camping in the forest with his dad. The best thing of all is that Holly finds that Zeb is as embarrassed by his father as she is by hers.Zeb becomes part of the challenge too and together, … [Read more...]
Lit Fests in Schools
Last year, St. Mary's School had its first lit fest, and I was delighted to be part of it. Talking to starry-eyed children is an experience like no other, and that's why lit fests in school are special.After addressing the children who were gathered together in the hall, we visited a few classrooms, met the girls and looked at the work they had put together. It was good fun, and I wished I had more time with each child. In an hour, I could do no justice to 150 very different reading-related projects. Stories, 3-D projects, book reports, reviews ... These girls from classes I to III had them all! (Some very honestly told me, 'My father and I made this' or 'My mother did everything and I did the colouring'.)Many of the children I met are now in my Writers' Club, and I'm delighted to be working with them all year on their writing.They were excited to meet me again, … [Read more...]
Moin and the Monster
Moin and the Monster has been on my list of books to read for a long time, and I finally got around to reading it mainly because of the essay I did for The Curious Reader on "The Problem With Monster Stereotypes In Literature". Of course, it was impossible to read every book on monsters for a 1000-word essay, but finally, I had the perfect reason to put everything aside and read this one.It was excellent: deliciously funny and wholly unusual. I chuckled at Moin's uneasy relationship with a monster that is full of rules that it spouts all the time. Moin is, unfortunately, stuck with this monster who loves to sing, for one of the rules states that a monster must stay with the human who gives it shape by drawing it.From joining singing class so that he can justify the constant singing from his room to trying to explain away the disappearance of hundreds of bananas, … [Read more...]
Before We Were Free
All of us know stories of the Holocaust. Recently, I read something on social media that claimed that The Diary of a Young Girl is among the ten most widely read books in the world. Don't get me wrong; stories of the Holocaust are crucial. They teach us lessons that are horrifyingly relevant today.Yet, when we read stories about Germany, Hitler and the Jews to the exclusion of stories of horrors that have occurred - and continue to occur - in other parts of the world, we feed into the age-old problem of Eurocentricism. We need other stories so that we don't think of the Holocaust as one terrible period in history, which is over and done with.Before We Were Free is the story of a child living under a dictator in the Dominican Republic. Twelve-year-old Anita does not believe that she is not free. What does that even mean? She lives with her extended family and … [Read more...]
Monsters and Stereotypes
I'm so happy with all the lovely responses I've been getting to my essay, "The Problem With Monster Stereotypes In Literature"! Thank you for the love. It's been ages since I wrote something remotely academic, so I was nervous about this piece.The writing of the essay started with all the monster posts I've been writing here on my blog, particularly after workshops I conduct with children and adults.How do we imagine monsters? What forms the bedrock of our imagination of monsters?With all my activities around the creation of monsters, it was time to take the idea further, examining why children so often create monsters that are fat, ugly, dark-skinned and male.The word count did not allow me to include everything I would have liked to, particularly as there are so many books that do try to create new kinds of monsters. One book that comes to mind featured in an earlier … [Read more...]
Working with Poetry
Many children write poetry. Rhyme is fun, having your poem published in the school magazine is even more fun. Teachers and parents encourage children to write poetry, which is good. Of course there's a 'but'.People have been writing poetry forever. Forget the ancient languages, in English alone, even those who don't opt to study Old English begin by studying Chaucer et al, who wrote almost 700 years ago. When children write about rainy days and their favourite pets, what are they doing to make their work stand out? Why will their work be special? That's what we work with when I conduct poetry writing workshops.Yesterday's workshopAs we played with poetry, people kept popping in to ask what was happening. A Sunday afternoon at a library meant we had lots and lots of visitors.Exasperated with the interruptions, the children finally asked me, "Why do so many people want to … [Read more...]
Working with Stories
Stories are magical; we all know that. What is even more magical is when you can feel creative energy pulsing all around you and then see those ideas transforming into stories.Creative Writing with ChildrenYesterday, at The Story Station, I met a group of enthusiastic young children, bursting with ideas. One boy had made a list of ideas that he wanted to develop into stories. And as a writing exercise, he came up with a portal to Legoland!A six-year-old told me she wants to write scary stories. Her first story was about Nina and the monster under her bed. The second was about falling through a wall into a place where it was Halloween! Terrified of a skeleton there, she ran back through the wall to safety.Yes, she is six (okay, six and a half, she would insist) years old, and yes, she wrote it right there in front of me during my workshop.Creative writing workshops … [Read more...]
The 13-Storey Treehouse
Have you ever read a book that was not at all "your" kind of book, but you ended up enjoying it anyway? The 13-Storey Treehouse was exactly that, for me. It was a gentle reminder that I never know what my "kind" of book is until I read it.Why was it not my kind of book?Two reasons immediately come to mind.One, I don't like books with so many pictures unless they're picture books.Two, I often don't like the kind of humour we find in The 13-Storey Treehouse.Why did I pick it up?One huge reason: children love it. When I conducted workshops for the British Council's Big Friendly Read Reading Challenge, everyone's favourite book was The 13-Storey Treehouse. This was several years ago, but the number of children who said it was the best book in the collection made me remember the title and look out for it.Even when I picked it up, I … [Read more...]
The Explorer
With some writers, I feel I just cannot go wrong. Katherine Rundell is one of them. Sure, I like some books more than others, but at the end of each one, I find myself smiling, deeply contented. I didn't write about the first two books I read by Rundell (The Girl Savage and Rooftoppers), but I did review The Wolf Wilder, which was one of the top ten middle-grade books I read in 2018.The Explorer began slowly, just like The Wolf Wilder. I took a while to get into the story and feel for the characters - I even read another book in between. Yet, when I came back to The Explorer, I stayed, sucked into the secrets of the jungle.A six-seater plane crashes into the Amazon rainforest. The pilot dies, leaving four children who barely know one another. There's Lila, who is fiercely protective of her five-year-old brother Max. Then there's Con, who seems … [Read more...]
The Case of the Candy Bandit
There were so many things I liked about The Case of the Candy Bandit! For one, I enjoyed the fact that the Superlative Supersleuths were a pair of girls - aided (temporarily) by another girl. I liked the seriousness with which Rachita went about the business of being a detective, and I loved all the sprinklings of humour, particularly the outrageous hypotheses the girls came up with. Could the candy bandit be the counsellor conducting some sort of secret research experiment on the children?At Rachita and Aarti's school, to encourage the children to finish their lunch, the counsellor suggests that they be given a treat--which is to be denied if the children do not eat their lunch. One day, though, many of the treats disappear. And this happens not once, but a number of times. Aided (maybe ... somewhat ...) by the idea of the centre of gravity, Rachita must … [Read more...]