Dreadtastic. What could dreadtastic be? A little imagination led me to the right answer - dreadful + fantastic. Aha! I love books that play with words, as well as books that feature characters that enjoy words. I recently read (and wrote about) Friends Behind Walls, and the word games we played when we read it at my reading programme. The first book I read by Shabnam Minwalla is about writing and words too - Lucky Girl. Even as I read it, I planned how I would use it for my reading programme. It produced giggles and fun, poems, new book covers and crazy recipes. I was all set to enjoy Nimmi's Dreadtastic Detective Days! Nimmi has an overactive imagination. When she is sick, overactive turns to hyperactive and she feels that the pineapples on her curtains have murderous intentions. The worst thing about being sick, however, is not malevolent pineapples; it's the fact that she isn't … [Read more...]
Loki Takes Guard
What draws me into a story? What makes me long to know more? What keeps me reading? Character. Always, character. That's probably why I don't typically enjoy detective stories very much. Suspense isn't what drives me as a reader, and all too often, good detectives remain elusive. Their enigma is part of why people are drawn to them - and I'm not. I'm drawn to characters that show themselves at their ugliest, most vulnerable moments, as well as their silliest ones. I'm drawn to characters like Loki. Loki Takes Guard is the story of an 11-year-old who tells you straight off that her name is not as cool and fancy as it seems. It's not Loki, but Lokanayaki. Ugh. Who has a name like that? Just three chapters in, I got sucked into the story. It's beautiful and warm, full of moments of angst, embarrassment, love and humour. I chuckled at the serials the family watches; I loved the … [Read more...]
The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula
The first edition of my online reading programme for ages 9 and 10 is here! For a while, I've had queries from parents about children who love reading but don't know how to get started on their writing journeys. They want to write, but they don't know what to do or how to go about it. I began mulling over it. Would a writing workshop help? Perhaps it would, but I felt that beginning on familiar ground - reading - would work better. And so, here it is - my first reading programme for this age-group. What better way to begin than with a book by Asha Nehemiah? I began my first reading programme for younger children with her Trouble with Magic, and we loved it. The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula is similar in so many ways, but still entirely different. Someone is trying to steal Malu Paati's secret hair oil formula. It is a special formula indeed, one that requires … [Read more...]
Mini’s Money
Sometimes, when I pick up a book for children, I wonder, "What would I have thought of this as a child?" Mini's Money would probably have appealed to me, but what really made me stop and think was the idea of colouring the story. Colouring in a book was a strict no for me, but would this series have changed that? Perhaps it would, for I enjoyed the book! Mini's Money is an early chapter book, perfect for voracious young readers. Many 5- and 6-year-old readers have already moved beyond short, 32-page picture books full of colour. They want more story, but pictures remain comforting. The theme of the book needs to be child-friendly and age-appropriate too, for their experience of the world is limited, even if their reading ability is greater than that of other children their age. In that sense, Mini's Money is ideal. Mini is young and naive, not yet equipped to understand how … [Read more...]
Amelia Bedelia Means Business
Amelia Bedelia. The name just asks you to read it aloud. And what a character Amelia is! As with the very best fictional characters (I'm thinking of Anne Shirley, Pippi Longstocking and the like), Amelia's personality leaps out of the pages. She makes you chuckle at her sheer optimism, at her zest and her drive. Obstacles? What are those? Amelia sees Suzanne's new bike and knows she has to get one for herself. But her parents are unwilling to give her an advance Christmas-cum-birthday present. What they are willing to do, however, is meet her halfway. If she can find a way to pay half the price, they'll pay the other half. Amelia and her father shake hands, and they have a deal. The problem, though, is Amelia's tendency to take things literally. Idioms are puzzling. Ways of speaking make no sense. So, when she's working at a restaurant and a customer asks her for 'a pie - and step … [Read more...]
Bena’s Summer
Poetic. That's the first word that comes to mind when I think of Bena's Summer. It's a slow, almost languorous read, evoking the in which summer in a small town stretches before us. And this summer, we see through eight-year-old Bena's eyes. Bena, who is a precious, precocious child, a mix of childlike innocence and equally childlike wisdom. Bena is short for Benazir. She is innocent, generous, and, in the way children sometimes are, cruel. What makes her special, though, is her courage. Her moral compass points true, and she knows when she must stand up for those who are not as strong as she is. She also knows when she is in the wrong and with all the generosity of her spirit, she reaches out to beg for forgiveness. With Bena, the reader experiences love that almost hurts. We see life through her eyes; we see her courage, her indomitable spirit, and the complexity of her family. … [Read more...]
Ahimsa
Ahimsa has been on my TBR list for a long time and finally, it was my first read of 2021. What a lovely, lovely book. When I started reading it, I was a little puzzled. We've studied about the independence struggle several times in school. We know about Gandhi, his fasts, the swadeshi and boycott movements and his call for ahimsa or non-violence. We know about freedom fighters having been imprisoned and about the Hindu-Muslim riots that erupted all over the country. There seemed to be nothing new in Ahimsa, nothing that would make readers everywhere to talk about the book for so long. And then, Ahimsa went on to be so much more. We do know about social reformists and about Gandhi moving from the word Untouchable to the word Harijan. Ahimsa goes deeper. Was Harijan an acceptable word to people who felt rejected by the god that supposedly created the caste system? Was change even … [Read more...]
Half Brother
About a year ago, I read Kenneth Oppel's The Boundless. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't a book that wowed me. I read it, quite liked it and moved on. That's why Half Brother was not high on my list of books to read. I knew I would read it, but it sat on my shelf for a bit, while I read other books, including Nomad's Land and To Night Owl from Dogfish. And then, Half Brother made me sob the way only the best books can. Just like Pig Heart Boy, it raises all kinds of questions - about experiments on animals and human selfishness. Thirteen-year-old Ben's father is a behavioural scientist. He is convinced that chimps, being closest to humans, can be taught to use language to communicate. And he's determined to prove it. Ben's mother, who is doing her thesis on cross-fostering, is delighted with the experiment. They bring home and eight-day old chimpanzee, whom they call Zan, and begin … [Read more...]
To Night Owl From Dogfish
I love epistolary novels. I think I've always loved them; they intrigue me. Off the top of my head, I think about Dear Mrs Naidu, Ketchup Clouds, Daddy Long-Legs and The Night Diary, though I'm sure I'll think of several more by the time I finish writing this blog post. To Night Owl from Dogfish is right up there with the best of them. It's crazy, full of laugh-out-loud humour, and poignant (yes, I did cry over it). Dogfish, aka Bett, loves snooping on her father. She checks his email and discovers that he is in a relationship with Avery's father, Sam Bloom. In fact, the relationship is so serious that they want their daughters to get to know each other. Bett writes to Night Owl, aka Avery. It's a crisis. They don't want two families to become one! They're happy by themselves and determined to cast a spoke in their fathers' wheels. In the way of stories - and real life - … [Read more...]
The Sheep-Pig
A few months ago, one of my publishers, Mango Books, began a series of posts on social media about books authors read when they were young. The book I chose was The Sheep-Pig, a delightful chapter book by a favourite writer, Dick King-Smith. Dick King-Smith's stories are a treat. I loved The Sheep-Pig, the sequel Ace and so many more - Saddlebottom, A Mouse Called Wolf, The Hodgeheg ... Every time I went to the library, I would look out for his books, hoping to discover at least one more book I hadn't read. Why is this book part of my reading programme? Obviously, the first reason is that I love it. Here's what I said to Mango Books about it. "The Sheep-Pig is a delightful story, and I'm so glad I read it as a child! The book left me with the feeling that anything is possible. More than that, I loved the idea that kindness and courtesy can help you achieve … [Read more...]
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