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...]
The Curious Case of the Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop
Ghosts, suspense, smart children and the most delicious-sounding foods come together in The Curious Case of the Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop by Nandini Nayar. Vishnudas Mithaiwala owns The Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop, and everything seems to be fine--until two children turn up claiming to be his estranged sister's child! Whom should Vishnu believe? Whom should we believe? And more, what can we make of the fact that Laddoo begins to see ghosts in the house?I enjoyed reading this book about rivalry and teamwork, secrets and emotion. It'll be fun reading it with my book club too! The Recipe Book The Recipe Book is a family heirloom belonging to the owners of The Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop. In reality too, each family's food is unique. Let's find out about what foods we enjoy!The best part about an online programme is the fact that children sign up from all over … [Read more...]
By Royal Appointment
Although I did read several books by Jeffrey Archer when I was in college, I never grew to be a fan the way so many of my friends were. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed By Royal Appointment--rendered even more delightful by Priya Kuriyan's illustrations. By Royal Appointment There's nothing like listening to the author read out a part of the book, and Jeffrey Archer has shared a 6-minute excerpt on his website, which we will listen to together. We will then try to design a "By Royal Appointment" seal, the one that we think will be found on every product tested by the King and Queen of Littleland. Echo and Narcissus The best part of reading a short book is that we have the time to explore so much else! Queen Echo of Littleland is a zany character, but she gives us the excuse to explore the word echo and the story that led to the creation of the word. … [Read more...]
Bat and the End of Everything
Exactly a year ago, I posted about A Boy Called Bat, which we read at the April 2023 edition of my book club. We loved the book, and the rest of the series has been on my mind ever since then. In April 2024, we're finally going to read Bat and the End of Everything, the last book in the BAT series. A lovely book with a neurodivergent boy at the centre, Bat and the End of Everything is a heart-warming story about family, friendship, and big emotional decisions. Bat knows--and has always known--that the skunk kit he adopted needs to be released into the wild. But what can he do to make his goodbye easier? Not giving it away, but the end of the book is the best part of the story! Animal Trivia Each time I work with a book about animals, I'm amazed at the amount of trivia children know and want to share. This time, leading from a conversation about the … [Read more...]