It's time to introduce another series to my book club - the Gulgul series! I wonder if the book is targeted at slightly younger readers than my book clubbers, but the number of things we can do with Gulgul in Jungalu prompted me to select it.Gulgul is mischievous, resourceful and friendly, the perfect protagonist of an adventure story. She must befriend not just elephant-like creatures, but also flippots, bluglugs and longfellows in order to help her mother Megha build a zingjuck that will shoot them into space where they will have phone coverage to call a spacecab!Full of wacky words and even wackier animals, Gulgul in Jungalu promises to keep my book clubbers giggling as we read. Space Travel Imagine you're travelling through space. What planet are you from? How do you travel? How old do you have to be to drive a space vehicle? What are your … [Read more...]
Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells
For the first time ever, we're going to read one of my books at my book club! I am in equal parts nervous and excited. Yes, Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells was shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award. Yes, it's been published both by Scholastic Asia and Scholastic India. Yes, it was shortlisted for the Singapore Book Award. That doesn't make me any less nervous!I chose this book of mine because reading Dungeon Tales II convinced me that short stories are perfect for Read, Write, Explore. We will read excerpts from three stories in class and do activities based on the stories, concluding the edition by writing something of our own. Jigsaw Puzzles A book club is all about having fun, so we'll begin with an online jigsaw puzzle. I wrote the story "Jigsaw Puzzles" because I loved jigsaws as a child. Like Aniket in the story, I would make … [Read more...]
The Adventures of Mooli and the Bully on Wheels
We're rereading The Adventures of Mooli and the Bully on Wheels at my book club! The book features characters some of my book clubbers have read about before. We've read both The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster and The Adventures of Mooli and the Blue-Legged Alien. It's time to meet Mooli again!Mooli and his friend Soups are fun, enterprising characters, itching to try something new. After all, they want to win a prize on WAYOUTS - World’s As Yet Original Untried Tricks and Stunts. Toothpaste art sounds like a good idea--or not. Funny, silly and full of wacky ideas, Mooli is a character with whom book clubs are fun! Art Explorations Mooli tries to create art using a tube of toothpaste. We're not going to waste toothpaste, but we are going to have fun with art! Can the children draw with their eyes closed? Or with their … [Read more...]
Yikes! Bikes!
We had so much fun with The Reading Race a few months ago that I was sure I wanted to do another book from the Ready, Freddy! series sooner or later. Yikes! Bikes! is perfect.The animal shelter in Freddy's town has organised a fundraiser, one that involves a Bike-a-thon. Max Sellars goads Freddy into making a bet with him, and the young protagonist rashly bets that he can ride more laps than the class bully. The problem? Freddy can't ride without training wheels yet and he has just two weeks to figure it out!Lighthearted and humorous, Yikes! Bikes!, like The Reading Race, allows us to do a lot as we read it together at my book club. The Hidden Fin As we read The Reading Race, everyone took part in a different sort of race - seeing who could find the word "fin" hidden in the pictures first! The protagonist Freddy loves sharks, so the word is hidden in … [Read more...]
I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018
During my first two writing programmes in 2020-21, one participant (who wrote this poem) recommended the I Survived series. She spoke about it time and again, and somehow, I never ended up picking up a copy. In June this year, when I travelled to Nagpur for a set of workshops, I ran out of books to read, so I visited Crossword. There, I came across the I Survived series and decided it was high time I read at least one of the books. It's perfect for my reading programme, Read, Write, Explore!The I Survived series tells the stories of young people caught in disasters and turmoil out of their control. I wanted a book that is set in the lifetime of my participants, which is why I chose I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018.Many of us read about the deadliest fire season in a hundred years, and the story of a pair of cousins escaping a forest fire is a compelling one, perfect for a book … [Read more...]
A Cello on the Wall
War is a difficult subject to introduce to children, and I'm often unsure of whether it should be introduced at all. Yet, most children are exposed to so much media and are aware of so much that is happening around them that I think stories of hope are important. Yes, history is full of war. But in the darkest of times, love and kindness do triumph.A Cello on the Wall is part of the One Day Elsewhere series I read nearly a year ago. The series explores important events in history through the eyes of a child, and A Cello on the Wall is about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Young Charlie - named after Checkpoint Charlie - cannot imagine a time when the wall did not exist. But he is part of the momentous fall of the wall, the day when east and west Berlin come together again.At my book club, as we read Charlie's story, here's what we will … [Read more...]
The Shy Supergirl
When I launched my book club in December 2020, I began with a hOle book, Trouble with Magic by Asha Nehemiah, and somehow, that became a tradition. During each edition of my book club, the first book we read is a hOle book. This time, it's Shabnam Minwalla's The Shy Supergirl.The Shy Supergirl is such a lovely, lovely book! It captured my heart from the very first paragraph. Nina Merchant is a supergirl. She isn't strange; she's special. What's her superpower? That she can look at a person and tell what kind of person they actually are - nice or nasty, evil or kind. That's why she shrieks when she sees her father's boss, but loves the schoolbus driver, Singhji, who seems to be rather scary looking.This superpower comes in handy when there's a theft at Venus Towers! Who stole Mrs Khanna's priceless silver owl? Was it Nina's best friend Buggy's cunning cousins? Or Mrs Khanna's nephew … [Read more...]
Ivy + Bean
Every so often, at my book club, I choose a popular, internationally loved book. We've read The Rise of the Earth Dragon, The Absent Author, The Sheep-Pig ... and now, we'll read Ivy + Bean.The enemies to friends trope is always fun. Ivy and Bean never meant to like each other. In fact, Bean is quite sure she has enough friends. She doesn't need another one, especially not someone who seems as nice as Ivy. She knows only too well that nice = boring. But when Bean decides to play a trick on her sister, she realises that Ivy is not as nice as she seems. And that's a good thing.Funny, silly and full of action, Ivy and Bean is perfect to read with a bunch of seven- and eight-year-olds! Predicting a story Before we start reading the book, I'll show the children a video trailer and ask them to imagine what the story is about. I know that some of the children … [Read more...]
The Great River Magic
The Great River Magic by Nandini Nayar is one of those books with a message, not usually an obvious choice for me to read at my book club. Yet, as I read this book, I was charmed by the premise. I love stories about families, family traditions, and the ways in which people follow or break them. The Great River Magic touches upon all this!Sangeeta - whom her grandmother insists on calling Gita - is the firstborn child. In the village of Rajpur, this means that she must take over the family business. What if she doesn't want to? That's just one part of the mess that Rajpur is in. Rajpur is famous for its wonderful, top-quality products of all kinds, but of late, people have been complaining about odd smells and inferior production. Sangeeta and her siblings must use their skills to investigate. Together, they find the courage to stand up to the adults and set things … [Read more...]
Petu Pumpkin – Tiffin Thief
We've read Bookasura and Koobandhee; we're all set for yet another book by Arundhati Venkatesh - Petu Pumpkin: Tiffin Thief.Petu Pumpkin. Isn't it a fun name? And doesn't it seem apt that he would be a tiffin thief?The question is: what can his friends do about the fact that Pushkin aka Petu Pumpkin eats everyone's food? They must come up with a plan.And of course, the plan must be secret. And a secret plan requires a secret society. And a secret society must have a name, a leader, a secret meeting place and a password.Petu Pumpkin: Tiffin Thief is a fun book that I'm sure we'll enjoy at my book club. Here's what we'll do with it. Secret Societies Growing up on Secret Seven and Famous Five, I don't know how many clubs my friends and I set up. The one I remember most clearly was a club called Helpful House, whose mission was to save the world. We made … [Read more...]