We love the Feather Tales series at my book club! I didn't choose to read Talon the Falcon earlier because it is much shorter than The Golden Eagle and The Paradise Flycatcher, but when children fall in love with a series, how can we not read the whole lot together?Set in the familiar Rose Garden, Talon the Falcon opens with a beloved character, Shikar, who wonders where all the birds have disappeared. He soon finds the reason - the presence of a falcon in the neighbouring garden! Of course, the birds, terrified, have flown away. But everything isn't as it seems, and Shikar soon realises that the mighty falcon needs their help.Here's what we'll do as we read Talon the Falcon together.Idioms and Proverbs Birds of a feather flock together. Bird-brained. Chicken-hearted.I never tire of working with theme-based idioms with children. A quiz always … [Read more...]
Flipped – Mystery Stories and Sci-Fi Stories
With Flipped - Mystery Stories and Sci-Fi Stories, we have another first at my book club - an anthology! Full disclosure - I have a story in Flipped too, but we won't be reading that one.I love the idea of the Flipped books. You read a few stories, then decide you want another kind of story, so you just flip the book over and discover another genre. Short stories work well at my book club too, so there's a lot we can do as we read this anthology. Sci-Fi Stories A couple of years ago, I invited a friend and NASA scientist, Dr Sreeja Nag, to conduct a session for my writing programme on science stories. Like every other guest session I've organised, I learned a lot from the session. What is science fiction anyway? What kinds of stories make for believable science fiction? Taking an idea from another session Sreeja conducted, we'll explore a few writing … [Read more...]
Crenshaw
I read Crenshaw over two years ago. In fact, it was one of my top reads of 2020, and it's a story that has stayed with me since then, a story I think about often because of its portrayal of friendship, loneliness and vulnerability.Crenshaw is the story of a boy, Jackson, and a giant cat. What role can a giant cat have in the life of a boy who loves facts? How can Jackson reconcile his need for truth with the ... fact ... that he has an imaginary friend? I'm waiting to share this beautiful story with my book club! Book Discussion - Imaginary Friends Do you have an imaginary friend? Have you ever had an imaginary friend? Children make up all kinds of companions; after all, that's what dolls and toys are for. I'd love to know what characteristics they give either temporary or more permanent imaginary creatures in their lives. Words, Books, and … [Read more...]
Gulgul in Jungalu
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...]