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© Copyright 2013 - 2025
Varsha Seshan

Jumble Sale

July 2, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Jumble Sale is such a delightful Silly Billy Book that I can’t wait to read it with my book club! Just like Agassi and the Great Cycle Race, which we read recently, it is a hilarious read that promises to cause much laughter as we read it together! Jumble Sale If your school organised a jumble sale, […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages nine and ten, Jumble Sale, online reading programme, online workshops for children, reading, Shabnam Minwalla

Jumble Sale

March 15, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Shabnam Minwalla’s Jumble Sale is another delightful Silly Billy Book, a lighthearted mystery, which begins with a missing bottlebrush. Who could have stolen it? An evil crow? A ghost? Or a thin woman with a beaky nose? Jumble Sale takes us through a hilarious whodunnit featuring mischievous children Dina and Dorab Sethna, hapless parents, and […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: books for ages nine and ten, Chapter Book, Jumble Sale, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla, Silly Billy Book

Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday

March 6, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Some time ago, we read Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days, and although it is longer than most of the other books I choose for Read, Write, Explore, we enjoyed it. It’s funny and engaging, and there’s so much we can do with the book! Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday is no different. Like in Lucky Girl, Nimmi finds herself […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, books for ages nine and ten, Nimmi's Bizuper Birthday, online reading programme, online workshops for children, reading, Shabnam Minwalla

When Jiya Met Urmila

March 1, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I read Shabnam Minwalla’s When Jiya Met Urmila at least two years ago. I can’t believe I didn’t review it on my blog! I think I was probably waiting to use it at my book club, which didn’t happen for several reasons. I think we’d read too many books by the same writer–Lucky Girl, The Shy Supergirl and Nimmi’s […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages seven and eight, online reading programme, online workshops for children, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla, When Jiya Met Urmila

Zen

June 20, 2023 by Varsha Seshan 2 Comments

What a book. I’m not sure I know how to begin reviewing a book as mighty as Shabnam Minwalla’s Zen. It is such a compelling read that even though it’s over 600 pages long, I chose to carry it with me when I travelled, instead of carrying my Kindle the way I usually do. How […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: contemporary fiction, historical fiction, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla, Young Adult, Zen

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

Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days

March 12, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

It’s been a year since I read Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days, and I’ve been mulling over whether to read it at my reading programme. It’s a little longer than the books we usually read, but there’s so much we can do with the book that I’ve been tempted to choose it. Finally, I decided I would […]

Filed Under: Books, Children, Workshops Tagged With: book club, bookish activities, books for ages nine and ten, Nimmis Dreadtastic Detective Days, online reading programme, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla

Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days

March 12, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Middle-Grade Fiction, Nimmis Dreadtastic Detective Days, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla

Lucky Girl

January 16, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Lucky Girl is a hilarious book. It’s imaginative, wacky and full of surprises. Sumi is a lucky girl. With her pink bed, a window that overlooks the sea, soft toys and a chef for a mother, she must be a lucky girl, right? Wrong. As I chuckled my way through this hOle book written by […]

Filed Under: Books, Workshops Tagged With: books for ages seven and eight, hOle books, Lucky Girl, online reading programme, reading, reading programme, reading workshop, Shabnam Minwalla

Online Reading Programme – Second Edition!

January 13, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Registrations are now closed for this reading programme. I was just about halfway through my first reading programme when parents started reaching out to me to check if there will be other batches. Even when I launched the first one, I knew I would continue the programme if enough people expressed interest. And so, here […]

Filed Under: Books, Workshops Tagged With: Amelia Bedelia Means Business, Arti Sonthalia, Friends Behind Walls, Harshikaa Udasi, Herman Parish, Hungry to Read, Lucky Girl, online reading programme, reading workshop, Shabnam Minwalla, workshops for children