Moin is back! But more importantly, the monster is baaaaack! (It even has a song about it.) With its quirky characters (most of whom we've met before in Moin and the Monster and Moin the Monster Songster), Moin and the Monkey Monster is a hilarious read. Through its pages, we can hear the monster's terrible voice and even smell squishy, overripe bananas.What my book clubbers (and I) love about the monster is how wacky and unpredictable it is. There's frozen laughter when something horrifically funny is about to happen--like when the monster is singing, and the principal chances upon it. Even funnier is the fact that only the principal, popularly called Kooki, seems to see this pink thing. As readers, it's a joy to be inside on a secret, and that's what propels the story. We know that the monster exists and we delight in the delicious wickedness of seeing Kooki question his sanity … [Read more...]
Gawa’s Bag of Good Regards
Lots of adults I know hated the question What do you want to be when you grow up?I know I loved it as a child. I had so many dreams, and I loved talking about them. Sometimes, I delude myself into believing I always wanted to be a writer, but an old, old diary tells me that I once wanted to be a doctor and an artist!Gawa's Bag of Good Regards by Anushka Ravishankar and Canato Jimo is the story of a child who doesn't know what he wants to be. But he does know what he wants to do. Unlike everyone else in his class, he doesn't even want simply to say what the teacher wants to hear. He beams instead and says that he wants to carry a bag of good regards and distribute them.Reading Gawa's Bag of Good Regards as an adult is different, of course, from reading it with a child. If I read it with a child, I can't help wondering what kinds of conversations we would have. What do you … [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...]
Moin and the Monster
I'm rereading Moin and the Monster with my book club! I read it in June 2021, and all those who read it with me are now too old to be part of Read, Write, Explore, so it's time to introduce it to a fresh batch of children.At my last creative writing programme, one of the children wrote a story about a pink 2D zombie the size of a pineapple coming to life. I immediately thought of Moin and the monster! How could I not? And I knew I had to read the book again. Rhyme Everyone loves rhyme. For me, the biggest problem with poetry that children write and send me is forced rhyme without a sense of rhythm. Sure, sometimes it works. Maybe. But most often, it does not.When do we use rhyme and why? What kind of poems would you like to write? What kinds of poems do you read?Beginning with a discussion, I hope to write a little poetry together. Surprising … [Read more...]
Ghosts Don’t Eat
Ghosts Don't Eat is the third of Anushka Ravishankar's books that we're reading at my online reading programme, and it promises to be just as much fun! We read Moin and the Monster at my book club for slightly older readers and the first of the Zain and Ana books, At Least a Fish, at an earlier edition of my book club for ages seven and eight.Ghosts Don't Eat is a hilarious book. I love children with good, earnest intentions, never mind what happens next. For instance, Ana wants to investigate the ghost in her neighbour Nikhil's house, so of course she needs Zain to create some sort of distraction. And what's the first idea that comes to mind? Start a fire! Is that the best idea? Um ...I'm waiting to read Ghosts Don't Eat with my book club! Words Ana loves words. Insufferable. Namby-pamby. Alibi.What better introduction to a word game? I'd love to do … [Read more...]
At Least a Fish
I love Anushka Ravishankar's books. Whether it's Moin and the Monster or Captain Coconut or At Least a Fish, I find myself chuckling as I read, shaking my head at her wacky humour.Ana, the protagonist of At Least a Fish, wants a dog. She really wants a dog. But her parents go and get her fish instead - not one, but three! Ana's friend Zain would call them Fishyone, Fishytwo and Fishythree, but Ana being Ana calls them Socrates, Aristotle (Totty for short) and Plato.That's just one of the dozens of crazy things in the story. From a dragon in a filthy pool to a dog who thinks he's a fish, At Least a Fish brims over with humour and madness. I can't wait to read it at my reading programme! Differences At Least a Fish is such a wonderful book to talk about differences - both obvious ones and not-so-obvious ones. There's one hilarious page in the book where … [Read more...]
Catching Up: MG and YA Books
So many wonderful, wonderful books and so little time! Here are a few middle-grade and young adult books I read in the last couple of months.Gorilla DawnI know a little about gorillas being endangered because I began to read up bits and pieces about it when I saw articles linking the fate of gorillas to the largescale use of palm oil. But even in the articles I read, I had no idea about coltan and its use in every electronic device we use. The threat that mining poses to gorilla habitat is real and frightening.(And so, first of all, all those who've been telling me I need to get a new phone, read this book.)I read Gill Lewis's White Dolphin years ago, but it stayed fresh in my mind because it is such a powerful story. I also had a fan girl moment recently when Gill Lewis retweeted a review I posted of Me and Mister P. Sky Hawk has been on my … [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...]