A story told from the point of view of a Cocker Spaniel--what's not to love about it? As a book club read, Lucky, It's Summer! is perfect in so many ways. The lightheartedness of the story, the repetition, the in-built activities--everything about this book by Nalini Sorensen and Shamika Chaves promises to be fun! Besides, for many children who are part of my book club, it will be the summer holidays as we read the book, so what better time to enjoy it together? Speech Bubbles I often work with role-play at my book clubs and while some children instinctively understand how punctuation works for dialogue, others don't. An activity where children have to write what characters say in little speech bubbles is perfect for this. What exactly does each character say? Can we put the words into the appropriate speech bubbles? Point of … [Read more...]
The Golden Eagle
Krishna Bala Shenoi's artwork is stunning. From the black-headed stork to the green pigeon, the pelican to the doves - the illustrations leap off the pages making The Golden Eagle a visual treat.But of course, I choose books based on the story, not just the pictures, and The Golden Eagle is a pacy, exciting read.The white-headed squirrel Shikar has questions. Who were his parents? How did he make friends with the birds? Why did Kabul the bulbul become a mother-figure to him, and why are Lovey and Dovey like his aunt and uncle? The two doves, Lovey and Dovey, set out to tell him his story. It's a long story, full of twists and turns, a story about Regal the golden eagle.I loved The Golden Eagle. Suspense, drama and beautiful characters make it a pacy read, sucking us into a book that full of politics, intrigue and betrayal. Suspense … [Read more...]
Ottoline Goes to School
We read Ottoline and the Yellow Cat at my book club last year, and it was such fun. I enjoy silliness of this kind so much that the book was on my list of favourite chapter books from 2023.And Ottoline Goes to School, which I read in 2022, was one of my favourites from that year. I'm waiting to read it with my book club! Picture Postcards We've made picture postcards at my book club before and it is so much fun! I remember doing it when we read The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev. I sent my book clubbers postcards after that too, which was part of the fun.Since there are so many letters and postcards in Ottoline Goes to School, we'll make one of our own! Unusual Subjects At the Alice B. School for the Differently Gifted, there are some very unusual subjects, like Giggling Studies and Weeping Workshop. What other funny, … [Read more...]
No Talking
No Talking is such a fun book! I'm often wary of 'Boys vs. Girls' stories because I don't like books that reinforce stereotypes. No Talking does the opposite; in fact, rather too explicitly so, for me. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I loved how a contest between the boys and the girls in a class slowly morphs into a team game, where the students overcome their differences and come together. What emerges is a school story that is utterly believable and good fun! Three Words at a Time I've lost count of the number of times I've played the one-word story and the one-phrase story. In No Talking, Mr Burton introduces the three-word story, and I love it! It's perfect for my book club too. Can we create a story together, three words at a time? I'm sure we can! Three Word Debate Mr Burton takes the three-word challenge … [Read more...]
A Giant Leap
I read and reviewed A Giant Leap three years ago. Since then, I've been thinking about introducing it to my book club, but it's shorter than the books I usually select, making me wonder whether it would be too simple a read. Yet, so much draws me to the book, from the childlike perspective to the exploration of a landmark event, that I decided we would read together. Here's what we'll do with it! Gravity I know that gravity as a concept is one that children study much later, but a lot of them have visited upside-down "museums". What do they think will be most difficult to do in a place without gravity? What do they think will be most fun? Moon Stories There are so many more stories about the moon! Who is the man on the moon? Is there a rabbit on the moon? Does a monster eat the moon every month?We'll explore a couple of stories, … [Read more...]
The Mystery of the Silk Umbrella
The Mystery of the Silk Umbrella is the sixth book by Asha Nehemiah that we'll be reading at my book club! And it promises to be just as much fun as the others.Like any good mystery story, The Mystery of the Silk Umbrella keeps you reading. Who is the mysterious intruder at the beginning of the book? What could Shantha athai, who really has no valuables to speak of, be hiding that is so precious? Who wants what she has, and how does the silk umbrella fit into all this?With so many chapters ending in cliff-hangers, the book compels you to read on, intriguing and humorous at the same time. Gutsy heroes, nefarious villains and a range of colourful side characters make this a fun read, which I'm looking forward to introducing to my book club! Precious Objects The silk umbrella is special to T. Satyavan for secret reasons. There are memories … [Read more...]
Ostrich Girl
I love introducing children to brand-new books, hot off the press! I read Ostrich Girl written by Lesley D Biswas and illustrated by Anupama Ajinkya Apte, and I loved the possibilities of exploring this book with my book club! Here's what we'll do as we read. Sounds The Secret Songsters imitate bird calls to fool tourists into believing that there are lots of birds on Henry Island. That's the perfect opportunity for us to explore bird calls! I will ask the children to imitate any birds they know, and then I'll play a few bird calls for them to identify. Bird Trivia Children love trivia! I look forward to asking the children to talk to me about birds they know, after which we will talk about a few unusual birds---including the ostrich, the roadrunner, the penguin, the drongo, and more! We'll also look at pictures of all the … [Read more...]
How to Rhyme Without Reason
How I love guest sessions! Yesterday's workshop on nonsense verse with Anushka Ravishankar was a treat. It's delightful how serious nonsense verse is! Full of contradictions, full of rules (of what nonsense verse is not), and full of surprises, we learned so much and wrote nonsense poems of our own too. Essentially, nonsense writing is a serious kind of writing which makes no sense. Does this seem contradictory? That’s where the humour of nonsense lies. While gibberish is not nonsense, we learned how we could use made-up words as part of a larger text, like in the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll. I agree with Anushka when she says that it's a shame that so many of Carroll's words are now in the dictionary. They were never supposed to make sense!We had a FULL batch yesterday, and the participants had dozens of questions, ideas, and poems to share. From Sukumar Ray to Shel … [Read more...]
Why I Think Online Workshops Are More Effective than Offline Ones
A Little History I started conducting reading and writing workshops for children in 2013 at the British Library, Pune. It was fun, and the library space was exciting. Both as standalone events and as part of the library's larger Reading Challenges, it seemed to me that libraries were ideal for workshops of the kind I liked to conduct.Soon, I contacted other libraries and conducted sessions elsewhere too - at Just Books, Atta Galatta, The Story Station ... Sometimes, the response was excellent, overwhelming. At other times, no one showed up.As someone starting out, this was, naturally, demotivating! But I kept at it ... for reasons I won't get into right now. The Current Scenario Since 2020, I've been teaching primarily online. And in some ways, teaching online is the same. For instance, right now, four of my six batches are sold out! All my batches have enough participants … [Read more...]
Strangus Derangus
Strangus Derangus & Other Adventures of Little Shambu is another book that I enjoyed hot off the press. It's a collection of short stories, perfect for my book club because we can read three full stories together in class, leaving the other three for the children to read on their own. Role Play There's nothing like role play to help children understand how dialogue and all its complicated rules work! When we read The Reading Race and Yikes! Bikes!, I realised that although children love role play, many of them take a little time to figure out who's saying what. By the end of it, though, everyone enjoys it tremendously.Strangus Derangus & Other Adventures of Little Shambu is dialogue-rich, making it perfect for an activity of this sort! Exhibition In the story "Strangus Derangus", Little Shambu sets up an exhibition of interesting … [Read more...]