Four books in six weeks - that's what my current online reading programme involves. And just like that, four weeks have gone by. If I make participants reflect on their journeys with me, I suppose it is because I enjoy the process of reflection myself. Each time I look back, I find myself nodding slowly at some new learning, some new revelation. Now, at just past the halfway mark, I can't stop thinking about reading tastes and how much they differ. "I'm a cheetah reader," a child said proudly, referring to our second book, Hungry to Read."Me too!""Me too!""I'm a Bull!" said another.Where I thought children would resent being categorized into 'cheetah', … [Read more...]
Mini’s Money
Sometimes, when I pick up a book for children, I wonder, "What would I have thought of this as a child?" Mini's Money would probably have appealed to me, but what really made me stop and think was the idea of colouring the story. Colouring in a book was a strict no for me, but would this series have changed that?Perhaps it would, for I enjoyed the book!Mini's Money is an early chapter book, perfect for voracious young readers. Many 5- and 6-year-old readers have already moved beyond short, 32-page picture books full of colour. They want more story, but pictures remain comforting. The theme of the book needs to be child-friendly and age-appropriate too, for their experience of the world is limited, even if their reading ability is greater than that of other children their age. In that sense, Mini's Money is ideal.Mini is young and naive, not yet equipped to understand how … [Read more...]
Happy Book News
On Saturday afternoon, the doorbell rang. It was a courier. For me. From Penguin Random House.When you receive an unexpected package, do you try to guess what it could be? I do. It was a slim package, so the easiest guess would be that it contained one book.But why would Penguin send me one book? Could it be a calendar? On the 6th of February? Or a review copy? But surely someone would have written to me saying they wanted a review!I opened it to find one copy of The Clockwala's Clues. There was no letter, nothing. I had no idea why my publisher would send me a copy of my book.So I wrote to my editor.Why did I receive another copy of The Clockwala's Clues?Probably a reprint! came the reply.Already? The book is less than two months old! But I was excited, so I opened the plastic wrap and looked to see if it said anywhere that it was a reprint. No. Nothing. Oh, well.My … [Read more...]
Online Reading Programme – Looking Back
Magic potions.Superpowers. Word games.Adjectives, homophones, homonyms, mazes.Codes, recitation, performance.What fun my first reading programme was! The first book we read together was Trouble with Magic by Asha Nehemiah. A reading programme involves more than simply reading the book, though, so we used our imaginations. What would we get if we put different ingredients together? A medicine? A magic potion? An explosion?Each of the children came up with something different, and it was such fun! Take a look at just one of them. Our second book was Shrinking Vanita by Manjula Padmanabhan. Apart from word games, where we attempted to unscramble words from the book, we created our own superheroes. What if everyone suddenly shrinks to half their size? … [Read more...]
Amelia Bedelia Means Business
Amelia Bedelia. The name just asks you to read it aloud. And what a character Amelia is! As with the very best fictional characters (I'm thinking of Anne Shirley, Pippi Longstocking and the like), Amelia's personality leaps out of the pages. She makes you chuckle at her sheer optimism, at her zest and her drive. Obstacles? What are those?Amelia sees Suzanne's new bike and knows she has to get one for herself. But her parents are unwilling to give her an advance Christmas-cum-birthday present. What they are willing to do, however, is meet her halfway. If she can find a way to pay half the price, they'll pay the other half. Amelia and her father shake hands, and they have a deal.The problem, though, is Amelia's tendency to take things literally. Idioms are puzzling. Ways of speaking make no sense. So, when she's working at a restaurant and a customer asks her for 'a pie - and step … [Read more...]
Bena’s Summer
Poetic. That's the first word that comes to mind when I think of Bena's Summer. It's a slow, almost languorous read, evoking the in which summer in a small town stretches before us. And this summer, we see through eight-year-old Bena's eyes. Bena, who is a precious, precocious child, a mix of childlike innocence and equally childlike wisdom.Bena is short for Benazir. She is innocent, generous, and, in the way children sometimes are, cruel. What makes her special, though, is her courage. Her moral compass points true, and she knows when she must stand up for those who are not as strong as she is. She also knows when she is in the wrong and with all the generosity of her spirit, she reaches out to beg for forgiveness.With Bena, the reader experiences love that almost hurts. We see life through her eyes; we see her courage, her indomitable spirit, and the complexity of her family. … [Read more...]
I Wish, My Street, Timmi in Tangles
January 2021 has already been so full of lovely things! I launched the second edition of my online reading programme, and I'm delighted that it came into being because parents of participants in my current programme wrote and asked if I would consider continuing the sessions.It was also a month when I received so many reader reviews of my books - take a look! What I've been reading In the meantime, of course, I've been reading. When am I not reading?But I haven't written much about what I've been reading because I was busy blogging about my best reads from last year. January is a month when I step back and look at the year that went by. I like to take time out to think about all the wonderful stories I read in the previous year and all the experiences I had with my writing, my workshops and my my dance. So, here's a post … [Read more...]
Hungry to Read
If there was one thing that could push you to read, what would that be? How would you get someone who doesn't like reading to read?When Arjun's teacher announces a competition in school, Arjun is thrilled - until he learns that it is a reading competition. He is no reader; he likes logic, facts and all things mathematical. The problem is that the prize is so attractive that Arjun is tempted. The question, though, is how far he is willing to go to help his class to win.The reasons I chose Hungry to Read for my reading programme are very different from the reasons I chose every other book. More than having enjoyed the book, I love the possibilities it has when it comes to activities and conversations. Here is some of what I will do with the book.Scavenger huntI love book scavenger hunts! We'll do a quick one with this book, simply to start a conversation on the different … [Read more...]
Ahimsa
Ahimsa has been on my TBR list for a long time and finally, it was my first read of 2021. What a lovely, lovely book.When I started reading it, I was a little puzzled. We've studied about the independence struggle several times in school. We know about Gandhi, his fasts, the swadeshi and boycott movements and his call for ahimsa or non-violence. We know about freedom fighters having been imprisoned and about the Hindu-Muslim riots that erupted all over the country. There seemed to be nothing new in Ahimsa, nothing that would make readers everywhere to talk about the book for so long.And then, Ahimsa went on to be so much more. We do know about social reformists and about Gandhi moving from the word Untouchable to the word Harijan. Ahimsa goes deeper. Was Harijan an acceptable word to people who felt rejected by the god that supposedly created the caste system? Was change even … [Read more...]
Lucky Girl
Lucky Girl is a hilarious book. It's imaginative, wacky and full of surprises. Sumi is a lucky girl. With her pink bed, a window that overlooks the sea, soft toys and a chef for a mother, she must be a lucky girl, right?Wrong.As I chuckled my way through this hOle book written by Shabnam Minwalla and illustrated by Tanvi Bhat, I knew I had to work with it at my reading programme! Here are a few things I plan to do with the book.Funny recipesPammi Gupta makes pumpkin peel muffins and furry leaf parathas for Sumi. Yuck! What kinds of things would you put together to make an imaginative meal? Would you eat the things you can see on the cover of the book? Once you know what the ingredients are, would you still eat them?PoetrySumi takes part in a poetry writing competition organised by Fab Foods. Her friend Priya wants to write one kind of poem while she wants to … [Read more...]