It's been nearly four years since we read The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev by Ken Spillman. We had fun reading it, and I hope The Astoundingly True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev will be as much fun with a new group of book clubbers!Dev is a highly imaginative character. The smallest things set him off on the wackiest of daydreams. A question asked during his geography lesson sends him daydreaming to Antarctica. A conversation about volcanoes, and he lands up in Whakaari. Where can our book club escapades take us? Where are you? Physically, Dev may be in an autorickshaw, but his mind is far away in New Zealand!What was the last place you read about? What if you were transported there? What do you think you would do, see or eat? Daydreaming Adventures Picture prompts always spark the imagination. I will give each child … [Read more...]
The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev
Daydreaming! Sigh. You can be what you want to be. You can do what you want to do.And Dev is the ace daydreamer. In The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev, the boy embarks on three adventures. He climbs Mount Everest, travels along the Amazon and then across the Sahara. Each adventure is real to him, and so, of course, he has no time to pay attention to mundane things like school and marks. In fact, even when he is being told off by his father, he's off on another flight of fancy.Dev's stories are full of possibility, and that's why I chose to include them in my reading programme. Imagination has no limits; let's see how far-fetched we can get! What could it be? Look at the cover of The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev. There he is, lying on a Kwality Carpets carpet and dreaming. A carpet can take you on an adventure, can't … [Read more...]
Radhika Takes the Plunge
A little over a year ago, I read the picture book Clumsy! by Ken Spillman and I enjoyed it. It is a sweet, heart-warming story about a girl who is often called 'clumsy', 'careless', 'butterfingers'. That becomes her identity until her grandmother gives her a box of paints. I loved the simplicity of the story; that's what made me pick up Radhika Takes the Plunge.Radhika has an over-protective mother, who refuses to let her go swimming. For as long as Radhika lived in Delhi, she did not mind very much. When she moves to Australia, she is mortified by the fact that she has never been to a swimming-pool when everyone else has, or as she puts it, everyone else seems to be 49% fish.When her mother finally lets Radhika go to the pool, the girl takes the plunge - in more ways than one.Once more, I liked the story because of the simplicity of the style. To say that the … [Read more...]