Thirteen children will be part of my reading workshop that starts on Sunday! Seven seats left . . . … [Read more...]
Reading Workshop
I spoke to Ms Sugandhi from the British Library last Sunday, and she said that 11 children had already registered! There are just 20 seats in all; now is the time! … [Read more...]
Treason
The year is 1539. King Henry VIII is King of England. All three of his wives, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour are dead. He has three children: Mary, Elizabeth and the long-awaited heir to his throne, Edward. Henry has broken away from the Church of Rome because the Pope would not allow him to divorce his first wife. Anyone who refuses to accept that he is the Supreme Head of the Church of England is accused of an offence that is punishable by death. Treason.That's how the book begins. And it did not let me down.Treason, winner of the Carnegie Medal, took me a while to read. There were parts that made me think about why I was reading it. Yet, it was worth it.To create a protagonist who is weak and most certainly contemptible takes courage. How can anyone enjoy the story of a soppy page who considers it beneath his dignity to work alongside a boy to whom he … [Read more...]
How Green Was My Valley
I read the book when I was eleven or so. It was among the very few books that made me feel I was too young to tackle that kind of emotion. I remember thinking that I would be able to feel everything better when I was older and did not need to look up words like 'colliery' which found their way into every chapter of the book.I never did read the book again, but I did watch the movie.I wept right through it.Family love is unique. Brother and brother, father and son, mother and son. How Green Was My Valley explored the family bond to the core of its being. Humour, emotion, religion, marriage, hardship . . . all these come together in the green valley in ways that are incredible. The simplicity of the young widow's statement, "I'm lonely." . . . How could I not cry? And dear Mrs. Morgan is delightful, truly beyond compare, there's an old beauty, you are!Ah. And there is a glorious … [Read more...]
Available worldwide!
Just discovered that The Story-Catcher is not available just in India and the US! It's available in the UK too! (And perhaps elsewhere in the world that I have not discovered yet!) … [Read more...]
Dragonfly
Some pacy books are formulaic, and this one is one of them.Prince must marry Princess - it's a political alliance. Prince and Princess hate each other; they have all kinds of adventures; then they love each other; then they get married.This fits in exactly.Yet, Dragonfly warmed me. There are some books that, like Disney movies, touch you even if you can tell, scene by scene, what's going to happen.Tashi, the young princess, grows to be a person, not a white painted princess. The idea of romance across cultures is amusing, inviting and heart-warming.Yet, one idea in the book that truly startled me was the realisation of how easy it is for a young girl (princess or otherwise) to feel guilty when she does not return a suitor's love. That, I think, is what made my eyes widen. Not the love story, not the elaborate courtship, none of it. Yet, when Tashi wants to reject Merl, but … [Read more...]
Asylum
For once, the amount of time I've taken to read this says nothing about the book.I remember reading Bloom of Youth. I was faintly unhappy with it. I then somehow ended up reading Grandmother's Footsteps and was so bored with it that I decided never to read Rachel Anderson again.Thankfully, despite what the proverb says, I always judge books by their covers. When I picked Asylum, I did not even notice the name of the writer, and the cover was so significantly different from the other two that I'd read, that I realised much later that it was by an author I did not quite like.I have to change my mind about that.Asylum was beautiful, moving, haunting. At a time when I know that getting a UK visa is tough, I wonder disgustedly at why we try so hard to get there. This book shows me how many people think of it as a wonderland. No, a Wonderland. A book about illegal immigrants, Asylum … [Read more...]
Encyclopedias
I remember a time in school when a teacher asked what we liked to read, and one child replied, "Encyclopedias." I inwardly rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh my God! What an unimaginative sycophant!" (Well, maybe not those words, but you know . . .)Today, I apologise.In the library, I opened a volume of the World Book encyclopedia set, and it was like stepping into a world of knowledge far more beautiful than Wikipedia with its five hundred hyperlinks per page. I read up to prepare for a class ahead, and was amazed at how exciting it is to peer at black and white pictures, to turn the page, to flip through articles that are totally unrelated, and to remember that as a child, I did not know Google or Wikipedia.I left the library feeling deeply satisfied and unimaginably thirsty for more. I love encyclopedias. How outdated I am. … [Read more...]
The Peculiar English Language
Of course we know that language is peculiar. And English? Any new speaker finds it ridiculously bewildering.I'm reading a book by Rachel Anderson called Asylum. More about that will come in a book-review soon, but it brought me to laugh aloud at the ridiculous English language.We learned similes in school. As fresh as a? Daisy! (Never mind if none of us really knew what a daisy was) As cool as a? Cucumber! (I always thought of the vendors all the way up to Sinhagad, and imagined them calling out 'as cool as a cucumber, as cool as a cucumber, as cool as a cucumber'.)I remember all these comparisons that we cheerfully chanted in school.Rosa, a young immigrant in Asylum, loves figurative language. She picks up expressions like a magpie picks up anything that shines.As pretty as a picture. As sharp as a needle. As light as a feather. Of course, all of that is understandable.But … [Read more...]
The Haunting of Hiram
Yesterday, when MJ Shubhra asked me to recommend books at the 'Book Club' show, I was tongue-tied, somehow. I could think of nothing. On my desk lay an Eva Ibbotson, so I said 'Eva Ibbotson'.My favourite by her remains Journey to the River Sea, but I've enjoyed everything I've read by her.The Haunting of Hiram was no different.It's a wacky book about a Scottish castle, bought by an American millionaire, and transported to Texas. The millionaire has a daughter who has polio, and predictably, the millionaire (the Hiram of the title) wants to protect and mollycoddle her. So, the Scottish castle must, at all costs, be freed of all ghosts.The book was a light, joyful read. It made me laugh; what more does a fun book need? Ibbotson's imagination always impresses me. It takes courage to write something utterly unbelievable and be willing to be as silly as you like. The … [Read more...]