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Varsha Seshan

Kolam Kanna

August 1, 2023 by Varsha Seshan 2 Comments

I’ve read two books by Vibha Batra in less than a month, and I’ve loved them both! So many things about Kolam Kanna were utterly delightful that this review deserves to be in bullet points, highlighting everything I loved about it. The name Bharathi! The moment I learned that Bharathi is a boy’s name in […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: books for ages nine and ten, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, Kolam Kanna, reading, review, Vibha Batra

Gobi Goes Viral

July 17, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Gopi compares everybody around him to a vegetable. His world comprises a capsicum, a carrot, a tomato, a sweet potato … The problem, of course, is that the moment he talks about it, he becomes Gobi, or worse, Fool Gobi. Trying to tell the bullies in class that it isn’t Fool, but Phool doesn’t help.  […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: books for ages nine and ten, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, early middle grade, Gobi Goes Viral, reading, review, Vibha Batra

The Paper Plane Flew

June 29, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Don’t you love stories that come full circle? As an adult reader, I was waiting to see how the paper plane that flew would come all the way back to Mithi because it had to, didn’t it? Even so, the last line of the story delighted me. Yes, I expected the last line to be […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Bharti Singh, books for ages five and six, Chapter Book, Hook Books, reading, review, The Paper Plane Flew

Trunk Call for Ajju

June 26, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

There’s something special about animal stories for children. I’ve never had a pet and I’ve never worked with animals, yet I remember devouring books like the Animal Ark series. There were dozens of others too – Saddle Club, every Dick King-Smith book I could lay my hands on, stories about dolphins, whales, dogs … Something […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Anjana Nagabhushana, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, reading, review, Trunk Call for Ajju

Pinkoo Shergill: Pastry Chef

March 2, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

When the publishers sent me a review copy of Pinkoo Shergill: Pastry Chef, I devoured it. Even as I read it, I knew I wanted to introduce it to my book club soon. The only question I had was as to whether to introduce it to ages seven and eight, or nine and ten. Ultimately, I […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages nine and ten, Chapter Book, online reading programme, Pinkoo Shergill Pastry Chef, reading, review, Vibha Batra

Petu Pumpkin: Cheater Peter

March 1, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Petu Pumpkin is a cheat! Or at least, so Jatin is convinced. And if Petu Pumpkin continues to cheat and lie, what will become of him? One day, he fakes a stomach ache. He used to be a tiffin thief. Tomorrow, he’ll be a pickpocket. And then soon, he’ll be a murderer! His friends have […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: Arundhati Venkatesh, book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, hOle books, online reading programme, Petu Pumpkin: Cheater Peter, reading, review

Chitti’s Travelling Book Box

February 20, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I love books about books, so I knew I would enjoy Chitti’s Travelling Book Box. When Chitti comes back from her Madras Mama-Mami’s place with a surprise gift, her friends can’t wait to find out what she’s brought. Unfortunately for them, it’s a box of books. Who gets excited about books? Chitti can’t believe how […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, Chitti's Travelling Book Box, hOle books, Kavitha Punniyamurthi, reading, review

Gupshup Goes to Prison

February 11, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Why do some books sit on my shelves for months before I get around to reading them? I bought my copy of Gupshup Goes to Prison in August last year. In September, I met author Arefa Tehsin at the Neev Literature Festival and got my copy signed. I finally read it today! And what a […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Arefa Tehsin, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, Gupshup Goes to Prison, hOle books, reading, review

My Favourite Chapter Books from 2022

January 3, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Each year, I read dozens of chapter books for my book clubs. Despite that–or perhaps because of that–there were just three that I fell in love with in 2022. That is not to say I didn’t like the books I read; I did. I enjoyed most of them thoroughly. Yet, as I looked back at […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Chapter Book, Chris Riddell, Malhar in the Middle, Meera Ganapathi, Ottoline Goes to School, Paati vs UNCLE, reading, review, Shruthi Rao

My Favourite Picture Books and Early Chapter Books from 2022

January 2, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I love this exercise – of looking back at all the books I read and loved in the year that went by. This year, I found it even more difficult to distinguish between various age-groups. Longer picture books are like early chapter books; late middle-grade books are like early young adult books. And so, this […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Chapter Book, Goal, I Want a Pet, Picture Book, reading, review, Ritu Weds Chandni, The Boy Who Loved Birds, The Manic Panic

Gulgul in Jungalu

November 4, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: Ashok Rajagopalan, book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, Gulgul in Jungalu, online reading programme, reading, review

I Want a Pet

October 19, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I’ve never met a child who has never in their life wanted a pet. Have you? But what if … the pet isn’t a cat or a dog or even a rabbit, but a buffalo? I absolutely loved Arundhati Venkatesh‘s brand-new Hook Book, I Want a Pet. Without any drama or explanation, we are sucked […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Arundhati Venkatesh, Chapter Book, Hook Books, I Want a Pet, reading, Reshu Singh, review

Secret Friends

October 16, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I love Elizabeth Laird. And Secret Friends was another beautiful read, a heartbreaking story about wanting to fit in, but never quite managing it. Lucy is the first to tease Rafaella, and this is something she regrets right through her life. Rafaella has enormous ears, and Lucy, unthinkingly, coins the name ‘Earwig’, a name that […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: books for ages nine and ten, Chapter Book, Elizabeth Laird, reading, review, Secret Friends

The Boy Who Loved Birds

September 19, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

There’s something special about Lavanya Karthik’s Dreamers series. With so little, each book does so much! The Boy Who Loved Birds is about Salim Ali as a boy. What questions did he have? What led him to become a world-famous ornithologist? Like all the other books in the series, the illustrations in The Boy Who […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Chapter Book, Dreamers, Lavanya Karthik, reading, review, The Boy Who Loved Birds

Yikes! Bikes!

September 5, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: Abby Klein, book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, online reading programme, reading, review, Yikes! Bikes!

The Shy Supergirl

September 1, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

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, […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, hOle books, online reading programme, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla, The Shy Supergirl

Petu Pumpkin – Tiffin Thief

June 30, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: Arundhati Venkatesh, book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, hOle books, online reading programme, online workshops for children, Petu Pumpkin: Tiffin Thief, reading, review

Dreamers – Lavanya Karthik

June 22, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I finally read the next two books in Lavanya Karthik’s series, Dreamers. I read the first two nearly a year ago! Once more, the visuals are gorgeous. And the stories? Simple and delightful. Janaki wants to be like the birds her father loves so much. They lurk in his eyes and make his eyes shine. But her […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Chapter Book, Dreamers, Lavanya Karthik, reading, review, The Boys Who Created Malgudi, The Girl Who Was a Forest

A Big Splash

March 6, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I read the entire PARI series a few months ago, and I’ve been mulling over them ever since. I’m not usually a big fan of nonfiction, and I haven’t yet worked with it at my online reading programme, but A Big Splash stayed with me. And then, there were stray conversations that made me think […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: A Big Splash, book club, bookish activities, books for ages nine and ten, Chapter Book, Nivedha Ganesh, online reading programme, PARI, reading, review

Malhar in the Middle

March 5, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I LOVE Shruthi Rao’s books. We read Manya Learns to Roar at my first reading programme, and even before that, I read and loved Susie Will Not Speak. If anything, I liked Malhar in the Middle even more. Malhar loves playing the tabla. But why does tradition demand that he should sit on the side? Why is he is the ‘accompanying […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, Chapter Book, hOle books, Malhar in the Middle, online reading programme, reading, review

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