Malhar in the Middle
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 artiste’? Isn’t the tabla player equally important at a concert?
A big theme like tradition is handled with the lightest touch possible, and it’s beautifully done. I love that Malhar manages to solve his own problem without needless drama or emotional conflict. He knows what he wants, he knows what to do, and he goes about doing it in a way that is as satisfying as it is lovely.
Here’s what we’ll do with the book at my book club.
Book Discussion - Tradition
What traditions do you like? Are there any traditions that you would like to change? I love that one of the minor characters in the story is a girl who plays the tabla. Is this a step away from tradition in some way?
Tradition could be a difficult topic with seven and eight-year-olds, but I’m sure it will be enlightening for all of us!
Resistance
Sometimes, the smallest things can be acts of resistance. Based on Malhar’s story, I would love to introduce the children to other people who took a stand and made a difference in tiny little ways. If they have examples that they would like to share with me, all the better!
Musical instruments
I love linking reading with other activities, and music is always special. As we read Peanut vs the Piano, the children played instruments, recited poems–and even performed kalaripayattu!
This time, we’ll do something slightly different. Malhar wants to take centre-stage, but we’ll all take centre-stage as we create musical instruments of our own in class, and use them to accompany a song!
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Names and Words
Peanut vs the Piano
We’re reading Peanut vs the Piano at two of my book clubs. Peanut, Papad and Pickle. What funny names those are!
“I hope their parents named them after their favourite food!” I said. “Not things that were lying around. What if your parents had named you after their favourite foods? What would your names have been?”
“Fish!” said Zayn. “My name would have been Fish.”
“Like the dog in At Least a Fish!” someone said.
So, Zayn amended, “Fish fries!”
Aarav thought about it. “I think I would be called Kalidal Pizza.”
We couldn’t help laughing. And then, he changed his Zoom name to something even more specific – Dal Makhani Four Cheese Pizza.
Ira could not think of what her parents would name her. “They like everything!” she complained. Finally, she settled on ‘Mutton’. Mutton. That’s what she would be called.
And Aarya? Her parents like very different things. “If my father had named me, I would be called Sushi. If my mother had named me, I would be Potato Chips. So, Potato Chips Sushi. No. Sushi, Potato Chips!”
Promptly, they all changed their screen names and I had a feast on my screen that day!
Paati Goes Viral
Soon, it was time for my session with ages nine and ten. We’re reading Paati Goes Viral, and I’ve been thinking about the phrase ‘goes viral’. Where do words come from? How do circumstances lead to the invention of words like contactless and acronyms like WFH and LOL? We discussed etymology and then, we did a fun group activity. I asked them to think of any word we would use often in class and make up another word that we would use instead, right through the weeks that follow. Now, look at the words we have!
book = strook
ma’am = sclem
creative writing = C. R.
viral = electric
So, the strook we’re reading right now is Paati Goes Electric. The C. R. activities are going to be fun, yes, sclem!
Green Reads – Part 2
The Golden Eagle. With its gorgeous pictures and gripping storyline, it drew us in. “I think I’m going to like this even more than The Butterfly Lion,” said one child. Just by chance, all three books we read during this edition of my book club featured animals. Manolita has seals; the title The Butterfly Lion says it all – butterflies and lions; The Golden Eagle has a profusion of birds. Many of the children have never seen storks, ospreys, harriers, green pigeons and thrushes, and the book brought these alive to us. It was time for a follow-up activity, one that we threw our hearts into. What birds would you like to talk to us about? That was the only question I asked the children at my book club.
“I hope to go to Zimbabwe someday and see the African Fish Eagle,” said Amritayu. Eagles fascinate him, and even more so because of the book we read on the golden eagle.
“The yellow-footed green pigeon is the state bird of Maharashtra,” said Sohum. I suggested this to them last week – each of them could talk about their state bird since they join from four different states. Sohum, signing in from Mumbai, did just that.
“The emerald dove is the state bird of Tamil Nadu,” Siddharth told us. Even though he now lives in Karnataka, he was in Madurai until 2021, and the emerald dove, rather than the Indian Roller, was the one he chose to share with us. “I’ve never seen one, but I would love to!”
Sangam told us about the peacock, our national bird. “From my grandparents’ place in Sivakasi, I see so many peacocks, and they’re beautiful. We even have a game we play about peacocks as we watch them fly away.”
Escaping to the jungle and going birdwatching in Bhigwan drew me to learning about birds and starting to identify them, but books like The Golden Eagle make me think – perhaps literature can help us take the first steps too!
Green Reads – Part 1
On social media, I’ve been seeing posts about book club facilitators introducing green reads to children. “What a lovely idea,” I found myself thinking. I’ve always loved stories about the environment. I read post after post, and then I stopped.
Wait a minute! I’m reading green reads with my book clubbers too – A Very Naughty Dragon with two bunches of seven and eight-year-olds, and The Golden Eagle with the slightly older ones! So, I reached out to Archana, who runs AA’s Book Nerds, asking if she’d like me to jump on the bandwagon. I had no idea how structured her Green Reads mission was, but …
We’re trying to draw attention to our role as book club hosts and indies and our contributions in the kidlit space.
Archana Atri, AA’s Book Nerds
Perfect! And so, here’s where one of our explorations of A Very Naughty Dragon led us.
As planned, we started reading this book with the last few pages. Komodo dragons are classified as a vulnerable species, we learned, because there are only a few thousand of them left in the wild. They’re fascinating creatures with stinky breath. They can throw up at will to reduce their body weight when they’re in danger and have to run! So, I asked the children, “What other wonderful creatures do you know about?” And in the next class, here’s what they came up with.
“I want to talk about the Pink Fairy Armadillo,” said Zayn. “And the first thing I want to say is that they’re very much a real thing.”
“Zebras are my favourite animal,” said Driti. She told us about how zebra stripes are like fingerprints – no two zebras have the same stripes. Coincidentally, she was wearing a zebra-striped T-shirt in class!
“I have soooo much to say about red pandas!” said Ira, but she managed to keep it short and interesting, telling us about red pandas in the wild and in captivity.
“Do you know about Vaquita porpoises?” asked Aarya. She held up a jar, which she’d showed us a few classes ago. “I’m collecting money to save the Vaquita porpoise because there are only TEN OF THEM LEFT! I’ve collected 934 rupees so far.”
“Hyenas are from the cat family,” Aarav told us. “Some people think they look like dogs, but they’re more related to cats.”
Vania shared her screen with us as she spoke about the quokka – the happiest animal on earth because it looks like it is perpetually smiling.
“I want to tell you about manatees,” said Aashvi, holding up a toy manatee. “They’re the cows of the sea.”
And once again, as I heard the children talk about their favourite animals, endangered creatures and the fascinating world around us, I found myself thinking that young people will save the world. They just need a little help from the not-so-young.
Careers in Writing – Fergusson College
A career in writing – what does that mean?
As part of UGC’s STRIDE (Scheme for for Trans-Disciplinary Research for India’s Developing Economy), the English department of Fergusson College invited me to talk about making a career in creative writing. What I loved was that I didn’t speak just to students of the English department; it really was trans-disciplinary!
What would a talk on a career in creative writing involve? For me, first, it would involve demystifying the publishing process. Secondly, to use a word that the organiser used, it would need to deglamorize the life of a writer. If you’re talking about a career and not a hobby, writing is not about penning down your thoughts and expressing your feelings. No. It’s not the random poem here, or the the snippet of deep, philosophical thought there.
Okay, so you write poetry. When did you last buy a book of poems? Does your answer help you understand whether writing poetry is sustainable as a career?
How do you go about the querying process? What kind of timelines are you looking at? If a publisher pays me an advance of ₹15,000 for a book that is three years in the making, you can do the math and see whether it adds up to a career.
It’s lovely when you can feel new ideas dawning on listeners as you speak. To a great extent, that’s how I felt.
“I read barely any contemporary Indian writers, and I think that should change,” said one.
“I understand that beginning a letter with Respected Sir/Madam is not inclusive, so I won’t do it.”
Do you see what I mean?
Adventure on Wheels
Adventure on Wheels is such a rollicking read! The book opens with two thieves stealing a van that belongs to an orphanage. The theft itself is simple enough, but when they discover three children hiding in the van, they’re up against more than they’d bargained for. At once heart-warming and hilarious, Adventure on Wheels is a fun book that I can’t wait to share with my book club!
Unlikely Heroes
When we think about the main character in a story, what kind of character do we usually have in mind? Subbu and Golu are thieves! Can they be the heroes of the story? Or is there another story that helps us understand why these two are off to rob a toy store?
At my book club, to begin an exploration of the idea of a back story, I will ask the children to come up with characters that seem negative, and then work on what makes them the way they are.
Illustrations
Often, when we read together at my book club, the children skip pages and look at the pictures ahead. They call out, “I just turned to page so-and-so, and look at this!”
Why not make use of that? I will ask the children to flip through the pages and find an illustration that catches their eye. What do you think the story behind the picture could be?
Festivals
Adventure on Wheels takes place in the days leading up to Diwali, a festival that’s hugely different for different people. What makes a festival special for you? If you don’t get gifts, delicious food, and family time, would a festival still be as precious? I’d love for the children to talk about their favourite festivals. Once more, a grand advantage of my book club being online – children from Ernakulam, Goa, Pune, Mumbai and Chennai have signed up. I’m waiting to listen to a range of stories!
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REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR MY FEBRUARY 2022 READING PROGRAMMES. New batches begin every alternate month. If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
My Father’s Dragon
I rarely choose to read classics at my book club, and My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett is, without doubt, a classic. I’m waiting for those wide-eyed comments about it having been published in NINETEEN FORTY-EIGHT!
But this is one of those classics that I’m convinced will be good fun to read with my book club. It’s quirky, imaginative, and full of unexpected twists and turns from the very first page. A talking cat, tigers that love chewing gum, a rhinoceros that wants a white horn … each chapter is full of marvels! Best of all is that the story is not about rescuing someone from a dragon; it is about rescuing the dragon itself. I love it!
Here’s what we will do with the book at my reading programme.
Wild Island
Like all lovely works of fantasy, My Father’s Dragon begins with a map. The map of Wild Island says ‘my father doesn’t know what’s on this side of the island’, which is perfect for us to imagine anything we like! What do you think we’ll find on the island? What adventures do you think we could have there?
Being Prepared
The talking cat advises Elmer Elevator to carry rubber bands, a comb, a brush, chewing gum, toothpaste and a toothbrush, lollipops … all rather unlikely things to take on a mission to rescue a dragon, wouldn’t you think? When we reach the first section where Elmer puts one of these to use, I’d love for the children to imagine different uses for a few for some of the other unusual things Elmer takes with him on his adventure.
Talking Animals
If you could meet a talking animal, what would you like to meet? Beginning with the simple question of what animal you’d choose to talk to, we will do a basic character exploration of what kind of creature this animal would be and how someone like Elmer could outwit them.
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REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR MY FEBRUARY 2022 READING PROGRAMMES. New batches begin every alternate month. If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
My Year in Workshops: 2021
The year 2021 was such an affirming year for me in terms of work! Since 2014, I’ve been freelancing. I’ve done workshops for children with the British Council, teacher training for Ratna Sagar, and I’ve been invited by schools and organisations to do workshops here and there. After nearly a year of the pandemic, these dried up. It isn’t as if I didn’t do workshops for other organisations; I did. But as I look back, only one paid workshop comes to mind – a session on my book, The Best Idea of All, for an online lit fest, Vishwarang.
Everything else was an independent venture, and looking back fills me with joy and pride. I launched my reading and writing programmes for children in October 2020, and they’ve grown in leaps and bounds!
Book Club for Ages 7 and 8
I just counted. In the year 2021, I read 21 books with 29 seven- and eight-year-olds from different parts of the world! The most interesting thing for me? I haven’t met even one of these children in person! Word of mouth, kind people on social media who had faith in my workshops and parents who spread the word made this possible for me. Plus, of course, all the bookstores I work with, who always ensure that my books arrive in time – Kahani Tree, Funky Rainbow, Storyteller, Eureka, Koolskool …
I started with just one batch – on weekdays – and then launched a second – a weekend one – in May 2021. As the months went by, I also wrote about several little things that make interacting with children special – whispering in class, talking about what frightens us, discovering suspicious monsters lurking on the pages of The Monster Hunters, important questions, thought-provoking conversations …
Part of the fun of my reading programmes also lies in scrambling for books to read together. Here are a few of the best books I chose.
Book Club for Ages 9 and 10
My creative writing programmes are intensive courses, requiring a 12-week commitment from children (and therefore, parents). Even when I launched the programme, I had parents writing to me and asking for something a little less intense. I mulled over it for quite a while before launching, in April, my book club for ages nine and ten. Unlike the reading programme for the younger ones, this one has a significant creative writing component. In a sense, it’s a creative writing programme through books, based on the idea that if we don’t read, we cannot write.
This programme has seen its highs and lows because of the differing interests of children. While some devour books, others are reluctant readers, often making each batch a mix of enthusiastic writers and others who struggle to keep up. Even so, the activities are always fun – and the children agree! Whether we do vocabulary activities or rhymes, we have fun, and we also have our own set of anecdotes!
Here are my favourite reads from this programme so far. Though Moin and the Monster, The Hodgeheg and a Fantastic Mr Fox would also feature on the list, I’ve inserted images only of those books that I read for the first time in 2021.
Creative Writing - Ages 9-11
My creative writing programme for ages nine to eleven is, in some ways, the most rewarding and the most gruelling programme I conduct. Four of the six children who joined the April edition of my programme joined again in October because they loved it so much. What more do I need in terms of validation? The best part of this programme is that most of the children who join do so because they love writing and want to write. Writing isn’t a chore. They log on to the forum day after day, week after week. They write, edit, rewrite, read one another’s work … I love it!
But yes, of course it’s a lot of work. The length of all the writing reports compiling the work the children shared on my forum during the October edition, for instance, was nearly 300 pages!
I had so many favourite pieces – a couple of monologues about seeing Santa, a wonderful set of diary entries written from the point of view of a queen, Shajar Al-Durr, and of course, the reflections the children wrote after each module.
I also invited guests to speak to the participants, and each guest workshop was brilliant!
Creative Writing - Ages 12-14
The twelve to fourteen age-group is a challenging one, but so full of wonderful new ideas! During the April module, we worked on poetry; I introduced drama for the first time; we created new characters, working with the idea of writing what we know. In the October edition, I was delighted to welcome three children I’d already worked with, and, for the first time, a participant from the USA! I loved how motivated she was, getting up at 5:30 in the morning to attend each session!
So many pieces stood out to me – a sonnet on exponents, an interview with an ecopreneur, and snarky one-scene plays about a pair of childhood rivals getting stuck in a lift together.
Working with young people keeps me inspired. I love the range of ideas I encounter, and I’m continually amazed at how much teens and preteens can write without suffering from any sort of writer’s block. May 2022 be as full of wonderful new workshops!
About Average
I read Frindle some time ago and loved it. I considered using it for my online reading programme, but it’s so well known that I figured that many children would have read it, or at least heard of it, already. How about something by the same author, but less known? And that’s how I stumbled upon About Average by Andrew Clements.
Jordan is about average in every way, or so it seems to her. She isn’t short or tall. She isn’t pretty or ugly. Her grades are average too. Soon, she will graduate from elementary school, but she still hasn’t discovered what she is good at. It seems, somehow, that she isn’t good at anything! She’s average, and that’s all there is to that.
But then, with her orderliness, her niceness and her simple attention to detail, she discovers during a crisis that maybe, just maybe, she isn’t about average. In fact, simply because of her ordinary, melt-into-the-background-and-take-care-of-things nature, she might just be the most remarkable girl of all.
About Average is, in so many ways, the perfect book for a reading programme that introduces creative writing! Here’s what I will do with it next month!
Haikus
Jordan wins a tiny haiku competition in school, and for some time, she thinks in haikus. She counts syllables and plays with words. What better premise for an introduction to creative writing?
Many children write poetry, but few pay attention to rhythm. I think one of the joys of a haiku is that it is so short that it seems accessible. I’ve worked with haikus before; let’s see what the children come up with this time!
Average
Word choice is important. What does the word ‘average’ mean to you? How does it make you feel?
Through this word, we will explore how the same word means different things to different people. While we won’t get into the terminology of denotation and connotation, that’s what the discussion is going to be about.
Point of View
Like I said when I reflected on everything we did with The Hodgeheg, study notes in books make matters so easy for book club facilitators like me! The last few pages of About Average have detailed questions to use in reading groups, and that is what gave me the idea for this.
Popular Marlea Harkins mortifies Jordan; we know that through the book. How about looking at things from Marlea’s point of view? Why did she do what she did?
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The School is Alive!
This is the first time I will be reading a spooky book with my book club for ages seven and eight! One of the British Council reading challenge themes was Creepy House, so I’ve worked extensively with slightly scary stories for all age-groups, but because it was never one of my go-to genres as a child, I took a while to bring myself around to the idea of introducing a scary book to the children I meet.
Yet, The School is Alive is the perfect mixture of thrilling and comforting. When Sam Graves becomes the hall monitor at Eerie Elementary, he has no idea that the school is hungry to eat its students! Sam finds an unlikely ally in the caretaker Mr Nekobi, and together with his other friends, he’s more than a match for his school!
Here’s what we’ll do with the book at my reading programme.
Creepy Alphabet
This is an activity I never tire of repeating. How many words can we think of that fit in with the theme of spooky stories? Can we think of at least one word with each letter of the alphabet?
In October last year, I moved to Zoom, and we’ve loved using the breakout rooms ever since. One child at my writing programme said that getting into a breakout room was his favourite part of each session! Let’s see how children can brainstorm together and develop word lists.
Creepy Characters
I used this activity long, long ago at a British Library workshop, and I’ve been itching to use it again. While I understand the challenges – one child may create a character that’s too scary for the others, for instance – I know that this is a good foundational activity for children to begin their creative writing journeys.
Sounds
Linking reading and listening once more, I will share a set of spooky sounds with the children. Although this activity starts off being scary, as the sounds change, it often leads to much hilarity, and don’t we all love to laugh?
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REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR MY FEBRUARY 2022 READING PROGRAMMES. New batches begin every alternate month. If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Peanut vs the Piano
Peanut is such a lovely character!
Peanut thought she enjoyed playing the piano. But with piano exams around the corner, piano practice is just one more thing added to an endless list of things she has to do when she would rather play outdoors. Soon, she begins to think of the piano as a big, brown monster. Even worse is that she simply cannot understand what her piano teacher means when he tells her to play with feeling. How is she supposed to play with feeling when the only thing she’s feeling is hungry?
Humour and excitement come together in this lovely little hOle book. Here’s what we’ll do with Peanut Vs the Piano at my reading programmes!
Likes and Dislikes
As this is the first book we will be reading at the February edition of my reading programme, talking about what we like and dislike is a fun way to begin. I often find that talking about what we like stays formal and informative. It’s when children talk about what they dislike that they begin to open up. While some children say they dislike milk, others say they dislike Maths, writing, waking up, brushing their teeth …
Looking at the book cover, what guesses can they make about how Peanut feels towards the piano? And does the piano look like it likes Peanut?
Music
I love doing activities that link reading with the world around us. In a book that’s all about music, I look forward to exploring songs and instruments together. I’ll give each child a couple of minutes to play a song, if they know how to play an instrument, or sing something for us. I’m sure it’ll be fun!
Listening
When we read Mira the Detective, we enjoyed exploring sounds together. This time, I intend to do something different. Instead of identifying sounds, we’ll take the activity in another direction. What do we feel when we listen to something? Can music make us feel something? At a writing workshop I organised recently, the guest speaker Veda Aggarwal conducted an activity along similar lines. I know it works beautifully with older children, but I wonder how it will be with ages seven and eight. I’m waiting to find out!
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REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR MY FEBRUARY 2022 READING PROGRAMMES. New batches begin every alternate month. If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Art, Music and Movement with Veda Aggarwal
Yes. Each time I invite a guest to speak to my creative writing programme, I realise that the session is as much for me as it is for the children. As a writer, I am often caught in a capitalist circle, writing with a clear goal in sight. What is the purpose of a piece? What do I want my audience to feel?
Yet, sometimes, writing is just writing. The arts are interconnected and once in a while, we need to be reminded of that.
When we were children and teens, Veda and I spent hours talking about art, music and literature. We read Shakespeare and made notes (which I probably still have somewhere). We discussed Giotto and Matisse, Van Gogh and Gaugin. Veda painted and drew; I didn’t. When Veda was ten (I think), she started playing the guitar and we began to listen to classical music together. We talked about Vivaldi and Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven. We thought about and spoke about music appreciation.
And all this came together in the creative writing workshop she conducted for us yesterday. She played snippets of various pieces for us, and in a beautiful, organic way, the children travelled from emotions to scenes and stories. We listened to Vivaldi, Schoenberg, Mussorgsky and Telemann. Veda led us to a little written exploration as we listened to the last of these.
What person or people come to mind as we listen? Can we find the beginnings of a story in music? It made me think. Just like in some kinds of stories, when the music comes to an end, we feel like we’re back in the same place, just slightly changed in some way.
Art
Some people, like Kandinsky, could see colour as they listened to sounds. On the other hand, people like Mussorgsky wrote music when they looked at paintings. Veda shared seven paintings with us and we explored all kinds of ideas and thoughts.
Movement
Finally, Veda guided us through a series of movements leading to what is called Tadasana, or the mountain pose. Feeling our feet firmly on the floor and our hands reaching for the sky, she asked us three questions. What makes you feel stable? What does grounded mean to you? What are you reaching for?
For me, above all, this workshop was about writing for the sake of writing itself, not for any other purpose. Writing is exploration. It connects us to the world around us. It need not tell a story! It could just make us aware of ourselves, our emotions, and our feelings.
White Socks Only
White Socks Only is a stunning piece of literature and art, a charming book about a curious child eager to find out whether something she’s heard is true. I revisited this book purely for the purpose of teaching it, and there’s just so much to explore! Of course, the obvious choices would be to visit the themes of racism and segregation. But as a creative writing trainer, there’s much more.
The book opens with the young narrator wanting a story, and not just any story, her favourite story. And she knows just how to get her grandma to tell that story – by asking if she may go to town alone. She knows what the response will be – she may not go until she can do some good there. But she also knows that this will lead to the story of the time her grandmother sneaked out, went to town–and unwittingly did some good there.
Without revealing why her grandmother went to town and what happened there, I can only say that it’s a beautiful story that always makes me smile. Whether I’m teaching diction, word choice, figures of speech or grammar, it’s the perfect story to read. With adults or children, with young writers or a book club … yes, I’ll say it again. It’s perfect. Here’s what we explored during my writing programme this time.
Structure and Narrative Voice
White Socks Only is a story within a story, and both stories are first person narratives. It is ideal to teach the advantages of using the first person narrator. Importantly, I like to teach the idea of making a conscious choice while choosing whose voice to use to tell a story. What would a shift in perspective involve?
I often also tell children about how I wrote Sisters at New Dawn in third person before realising that telling the story from Kannagi’s perspective would work much better. Yes, it’s a middle-grade book, over 30,000 words long. Even so, rewriting it was well worth it because it fit so much better with what I wanted to do with the story.
Dramatic Irony
During this edition of my creative writing programme, I introduced the idea of dramatic irony. Once more, I realised that an activity that works brilliantly with one group of children can fail miserably with another–that’s what happened with my dramatic irony activity! The good part, however, was that I found a video to help me explain the idea better. Then, during the story writing module, we read White Socks Only. And the children were able to identify dramatic irony perfectly in the story, even commenting on how the narrative voice makes dramatic irony possible!
Word Choice
When we introduce concepts like ‘show, don’t tell’, we need to keep coming back to each word we write. In White Socks Only, we have words like ‘hobbled’ and ‘slinking’. What do these synonyms for the word ‘walk’ tell us about the character and context?
White Socks Only is just one of many resources on the wonderful Storyline Online, which is what makes it particularly easy to use in class!
| Title | White Socks Only |
| Author | Evelyn Coleman |
| Tags | Picture Book, Teaching Resources |
| Rating (out of 5) | 5 |
| Age-group | 9+ |
A Very Naughty Dragon
I love Paro Anand’s books, and when I learned that she had collaborated with a nine-year-old girl to write a book, I was intrigued. As a teacher and creative writing trainer, I’ve read many stories that children have written. Some are excellent, others not so much. A Very Naughty Dragon? I had to read it to find out.
I did, and I loved it. It starts slowly, with a lot of repetition that I associate with books for much younger children, but as I read on, I enjoyed it more and more. I love the place where it sits in terms of a story – between picture books and chapter books, full of colourful illustrations, but with enough text to make the story more than a book for very young readers.
Draco is a Komodo dragon, determined to show his father that he can hunt. Surely he can catch a Timor deer! No, it’s too fast.
A civet cat? No again.
A butterfly? Nope.
But Draco doesn’t give up. He tries again and again – only to find himself a laughing stock for the monkeys! The squirrels join in too, but Draco is not one to give in. He knows there’s only one way to stop all the teasing and bullying – he must show them how powerful he really is!
A story about friendship and forgiveness, kindness and courage, A Very Naughty Dragon is a lovely tale, full of possibility!
Trivia
For once, I think I’ll begin my book with the last few pages. Komodo dragons are fascinating creatures. Through this book, I learned, for instance, that their breath is so stinky that you could faint or even die!
At my book club, I’ll ask the children to find out about other fascinating creatures. Timor deer, macaques, civet cats, or anything else that catches their fancy!
Onomatopoeia
We’ve worked with alliteration and similes many times. It’s time for onomatopoeia! A Very Naughty Dragon is full of sound words. What other words can we think of that are onomatopoeic?
Friendship, Determination, Kindness
At the back of A Very Naughty Dragon, we have these three words. The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster has the words ‘friendship’, ‘adventure’ and ‘mystery’. As this is the last book we will be reading at the December edition of my reading programme, we’ll look at the other books – Mira the Detective and Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom – and brainstorm a list of words that we think suit the story.
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Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom
Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom opens with the oracle at Delphi predicting the fall of the Titans. The future is misty and the oracle’s glasses are foggy, so she can’t quite tell what will happen. What lies ahead? Dancers? Oh, no. Danger. Danger lies ahead.
On that humorous note, we begin the story of Zeus, who has no idea that he isn’t an ordinary ten-year-old boy. Sure, it often feels like the lightning is after him, but then, that isn’t possible, is it? It’s a coincidence. It has to be. Except for the fact that each time lightning strikes him, he hears a voice saying, “You are the one.”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom, which made me sure that my book club would love it too. Adventure, suspense and a good dose of mythology make it a fun read!
Chip English
At the temple in Delphi, Zeus discovers a rock chip, which speaks to him in Chip Latin. What does this mean? Move the first letter of a word to the end and add -ip to it. So, for instance, take the word lion. It becomes ion-lip. I loved p-language so much as a child that I’m sure it will be fun playing with Chip English at my book club!
Homophones
“Flea!” say the Harpies. At least, that’s what Zeus understands. He’s nettled. He’s not a flea! He may be small, but not a flea, certainly! It takes a while for him to realise that they mean ‘flee’ not ‘flea’. This is the perfect context to introduce homophones to my book club. We’ll see how many homophones we can think of, and try to see what sort of confusion these homophones could create.
Friends
As a child, Zeus’s friends are a nymph, a bee and a goat. What unusual friends do you think would be useful? In what ways would they help you, and in what ways could you help them?
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Staging a Script with Lav Kanoi
What an enriching scriptwriting session we had with Lav Kanoi on Saturday! Ah, there’s nothing like a guest session to bring a fresh spurt of energy to our creative writing programme.
“What is a story?” That’s the question Lav began with.
I like the question. What is a story, really? As we talked about it, we came to the realisation that a story can be anything. Can’t it? But that leads to the question, is there anything that a story cannot be?
The discussion that followed led to the idea of form, which brought us to the idea that various forms – a song, a play, a story, a film script – are different because they serve different purposes.
One thing led to another, and through all the excited exchanges, one conversation stands out.
“A play wants to be performed,” Lav said. “Sure, you can read it. But reading a play is incomplete. It wants more. It’s like a tape. It wants to be put in a tape recorder–wait, do you know what a tape recorder is?”
No one said ‘yes’, no one said ‘no’.
“Ah. A CD! Do you know what a CD is?”
“Yes! A computer disk!”
“And what does the disk do?” asked Lav.
“You insert it!” one child said.
“Where?” asked Lav.
“Into a CD player!”
“And what’s on the CD?” asked Lav.
“Um … a movie? Or a song? Something.”
So much for the simile. CDs aren’t sitting around wanting to be played. Tapes aren’t sitting around at all.
Despite it all, the point was conveyed. Lav ended with a fun activity (during which he also pretended to be the Cheshire cat) on Alice in Wonderland, inviting the children to convert an excerpt into a script. We’ve broadened the activity now, taking suggestions from a couple of participants. I’ve asked them to do anything they wish to with the excerpt, playing with a form of their choice. They can write a dialogue or a monologue, a song or a poem. If they want, they can create a video, do voices, record an audio script, anything! I’m waiting to see what they come up with!
The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster
The very first book we read at my very first online reading programme was Trouble with Magic by Asha Nehemiah. A few weeks ago, a child who has been part of my book club since the beginning asked, “Can we read it again? Trouble with Magic was so funny!” I told him we wouldn’t reread a book, but what we could do was read the sequel, A Pinch of Magic.
This time, however, I’d already finalised the hOle book I wanted to read, so I did the next best thing – I chose another book by Asha Nehemiah, The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster. This isn’t the first of the Mooli series, but it works so well as a standalone book that I knew it would be the perfect substitute!
Mooli and Soups are busy ideating. They must come up with an idea that will win a prize at WAYOUTS – World’s As Yet Original Untried Tricks and Stunts. What can they do that will be simply outstanding? Surely, two intrepid young children can come up with not one, but a hundred ideas!
In the middle of all this, however, they have a mystery to solve. Who could be vandalising Mooli’s Amma’s signboard with silly stickers? Why does her board now read ‘Yummy Scrummy mon Keys’?
A hilarious adventure ensues as Mooli and Soups get to the bottom of the mystery and find the vandal. Characters leap off the pages in this funny page-turner. In the hunt for the thief, maybe, maybe Mooli and Soups can do more than just solve the mystery!
WAYOUTS
I love the idea of WAYOUTS! What thoroughly original idea can you come up with? What can you (safely) do that you think no one has ever done before?
At my book club, we’ll share every idea we can think of – the wackier the better!
Word Collage
The sticker trickster cuts out words and sticks them on Gita Aunty’s signboard.
Equipped with a newspaper and a stick of glue, let’s see what we can do together. We could make a birthday card, a book cover, anything!
Alphabet
Playing with the alphabet is always fun, and no one is too old for it! Mooli and Soups use yogasanas to create the alphabet; what can we do? Quite a lot, actually depending on the amount of time we have.
For one, we could play with the wonky alphabet, in Craig Smith’s style. For another, as I was reading The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster, I remembered that as children, we had a sign for each letter of the alphabet – a secret code! I still remember so much of it that I would love to pass it on. Who doesn’t love a good code?
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The Butterfly Lion
I love Michael Morpurgo. And The Butterfly Lion? I’ve had it on my shelf for ever so long, hoping to share it with more readers someday. That day is nearly here!
The Butterfly Lion is a classic. In Michael Morpurgo’s signature style, he tells a heartfelt, almost mystical story in the simplest and most magical of ways. It’s the story of love and kindness, friendship and loyalty.
Bertie is heartbroken when his beloved white lion is sent away to the circus. He knows there is no choice, but that does not make it better. He promises the lion that he will find him, somehow, someday. But Bertie’s story is a story within a story, told to a runaway boy Michael by an old lady who isn’t everything she seems to be. As we learn about the butterfly lion, we explore the joy of memory and the ways in which we remember the ones we love.
Like so many other older books, there are so many resources available online that it’s difficult to decide on just a few things to do during the creative writing component at my reading programme!
Literary Devices
A butterfly and a lion seem like such contradictory creatures.
Before we start reading the book, we will do a quick activity examining the title, writing short pieces exploring what all a butterfly lion could be. With a simple description, we can explore setting and literary devices like oxymorons, paradoxes and antitheses, moving beyond alliteration, similes and metaphors, which we’ve addressed so many times!
Show, Don't Tell
This is a ground rule of creative writing, one that writers work on all the time. Using an excerpt from The Butterfly Lion, we’ll discuss what this rule means and how we put the rule into practice. We’ll do a couple of activities around the rule too, trying to understand what difference ‘showing’ language makes.
Point of View
We read this book as a story within a story. I’d love to have the children write a diary entry from Bertie’s point of view at different points in the story – when he first sees the lion and her cub, when he is allowed to keep the cub, when he is told that he will be going to England … Diary entries and letters are a lovely way to explore perspective!
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Mira the Detective
Another reading programme, another hOle book! Mira the Detective by Pavithra Sankaran is perfect for my book club in so many ways. We love detective stories, and what better than a book featuring a child detective?
When an antique watch is stolen, Mira has very few clues, but they have got to be enough! She must get to the bottom of the mystery.
The theft of the antique watch is just the first of three mysteries that Mira the detective solves. What makes the stories even more fun is that we, as readers, are equipped with the same clues as Mira and we can solve the mysteries with her!
Sounds and smells
Working with our senses is something that never gets stale. In the first story, Mira hears a tic-tic-tic sound. What could it be? In the last story, an aroma is the biggest clue. I’ve worked with several activities to do with the senses before, and they make us both more observant and more creative. I’ll play a set of sounds for the children. What could these sounds be? What words can they use to describe these sounds?
Being conscious of smells around them creates a moment’s pause too. Once more, the children have the space to get creative as they describe what’s in the air.
Create Your Own Mayamix!
Mayamix is delicious, but dangerous. If you had to create your own food fantasy, what would it be?
Recently, I came across something utterly delightful called the Edible Exhibition. That’s going to be the starting point of our conversation, and I simply cannot predict where it will take us!
Idioms
Every so often, I like to play with idioms in class. We’re going to be dealing with more complex idioms at my book club for older children too, but we’ll look at a few simple ones at this book club too. Mira the Detective was first published as Something Fishy. The blurb says that Mira will ‘get to the bottom of it’. What do these mean?
We had fun with idioms when we read Amelia Bedelia; it’s time to revisit a few and learn a few more!
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Manolita
In many ways, Manolita is a simple, old-fashioned tale. For a generation that’s immersed in mythology – from the retelling of Indian myths to all the popular books that have their foundation in Greek mythology – I think a story about a selkie set in the modern world is perfect!
Jaya makes friends easily, so it comes as no surprise that she befriends a stranger in Oregon. Of course, her new friend Manolita has to be perfectly human … right? Even if she doesn’t quite understand the phrase ‘exchanging numbers’, and she likes to eat her fish raw …?
The entire series of books that Karadi Tales has released under the Minmini Reads imprint is remarkable in many ways. Often, books of this length are for younger children, but a chapter book like this for slightly older readers works so well! It’s a quick read, wholly satisfying and perfect as a conversation starter. Here’s what we’ll do with Manolita at my book club in December.
Quiz
I enjoy working with myths. In fact, the theme ‘Mythical Maze‘ was the one I enjoyed the most when I conducted workshops for the British Library’s reading challenge.
After discussing the ways in which writers like Rick Riordan, Lari Don and others have reinterpreted mythological stories, we will read a few myths together and do a quick quiz about them – quizzes are always fun! If we have enough participants, we can enact a couple of myths too, which will be even more enjoyable.
Idioms
Achilles’ heel.
Midas touch.
Cupid’s arrow.
Or even the food of the gods.
Mythology has contributed so much to language the way we know it! What better way to explore idioms than by reading a book based on a myth and taking it from there?
Explore Mythology
And of course, that leads us to a deeper exploration of mythology. What myths do we know? Working with a jamboard, we will share a range of mythical creatures that we have heard of. Linking this to a writing session we did recently that was all about research, we’ll read up a little about a few myths and imagine what would happen if two characters from two different myths met. The reading programme for ages nine and ten has a strong creative writing component, so this is something we can explore quite a bit!
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All About Research with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya
What an enjoyable writing workshop we had yesterday with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya! Every guest session is fun, and I keep realising that when a teacher plans a session, it is meticulous, detailed, excellent!
We discussed what we research, how we research and why we research, but then we went on to something that’s important to all of us as writers – how we share research findings. Sure, you’re fascinated by time travel and wormholes. You read everything you can about them. How can you get your readers to be interested in the same things? When Shayani stressed the idea of finding our unique voice, my heart gave a little leap. It’s so useful when a guest speaker brings up something I’ve addressed time and time again during my writing programmes!
I also loved that Shayani explored the relevance of research in the context of both fiction and nonfiction. Bringing the workshop to travel writing, we spoke of travel literature of all kinds – from travelling through the forest in Little Red Riding Hood to more obvious choices like Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
What the participants loved about the workshop was that every aspect of it was interactive. For instance, here’s just one of the four jamboards we created together.
Travelogues, maps, advertisements, travel tourism, travel blogs, journalistic articles … there’s so much we can write if we just research. Shayani left the participants with a writing assignment, and I’m waiting to read what they write! Like one of the participants said in the chatbox after we’d figuratively explored the earth, the solar system and the galaxies beyond ours through travel writing, ‘Thanks a whole universe! It was so cool!’
Four Workshop Anecdotes
So many tiny things happen during workshops! Here’s a quick roundup of things that make me smile.
Whispering
During one of my sessions, a child raised his hand. I quickly summed up what I wanted to say so that I would not lose my chain of thought, and then asked him to speak.
‘Actually, I want to talk to A,’ he said.
Amused, I nodded to him to go ahead.
What he wanted to say to A was utterly and completely unrelated to what we were doing.
And that’s what made me realise – at online classes, whispering has to happen with the teacher’s permission!
I like
The protagonist of The Vampire Boy is Kris, a vampire who hates blood. With that in mind, I asked the children to come up with sentences about themselves, telling us two things: one, something they like that their friends also like, and two, something they like but their friends don’t. My favourites?
My friends like troubling my parents, and I do too!
My friends like jumping on the sofa, and I do too!
And the surprising ones:
My friends like ice-cream and chocolate, but I don’t.
My friends like drawing, but I don’t.
Bringing Things to Life
I also love the spontaneity of workshops! In The Vampire Boy again, Kris’s friend Bo cannot spin on one leg without falling on her face. We read that and instantly, the children got to their feet to try it out.
I can hop in a circle on one leg. Does that count?
Anyone can stand on one leg!
I can spin on one leg!
We read of Kris carrying a bottle of A- blood to school, and the moment I explained what that was, three of the children disappeared. They had to ask their parents – immediately, of course – what their blood group was!
The Chocolate Touch
And then, of course, was this lovely thing I shared on Instagram, but not on my blog.
When we read The Chocolate Touch, I asked children to design their own chocolates, name the company that manufactures it, and add any other details they like.
Here’s what followed!
Rattu & Poorie’s Adventures in History: 1857
A book about a pair of sisters, where the protagonist is the younger sister … of course I was intrigued! Additionally, historical fiction has attracted me for a while, and I have come across very little in the genre for seven and eight-year-olds. Rattu & Poorie’s Adventures in History: 1857, shortlisted for the Neev Book Award for Emerging Readers 2020, is quite engaging, providing glimpses of three major events that comprised an uprising that all of us study in school – the revolt of 1857.
The links between Rattu’s life in modern India and historical events are interestingly created.
Rattu wishes for a soldier with a sword and encounters Rani Lakshmibai and Jhalkari Bai, who encourage her to play a game of make-believe based on the siege of Jhansi.
When bullies steal the sisters’ ice-creams, whom should they encounter but Azimullah Khan and Nana Sahib, who teach them how to deal with big bullies?
And finally, Ajju is upset and grumpy about having to leave his home and stay with his grandchildren – until they meet Bahadur Shah Zafar who was sent away by the Company to faraway Rangoon.
The imaginative telling of historical events through the eyes of young, modern protagonists made me choose this book for my reading programme. Here’s what we’ll do with it!
Whom Would You Meet?
During my very first reading programme, we read Manya Learns to Roar, where I encouraged the children to recite poems or deliver speeches, as if they were auditioning for Manya’s play. It was such fun to see what props they brought and how they got into their roles! We’ll do something similar with this, in the sense that I will ask them to bring one prop to help them talk about what historical character they would like to meet if they could time-travel like Rattu and Poorie!
Home
Ajju’s home is with his bees, cows, parrot, chickens and fish. What is your ideal home like? If you had to leave your home behind, what would you want to take with you? I think this could be either a fun conversation or a thought-provoking one and honestly, it’s only when we start talking that I’ll find out what direction it will go!
Time Machine
Rattu & Poorie meet historical characters thanks to three magical wishes. Rattu wishes she had a soldier on a big horse, then she wishes someone would get their ice-creams back and finally, she wishes her Ajju had a friend. Each one leads to a new experience!
How would you travel through time? Would you just make a wish or would you need some sort of time machine? Who would make this time machine for you and how? I’m waiting to see what ideas my book clubbers come up with!
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Registrations are now closed for all batches of my reading and writing programmes. The next set of reading programmes will begin in the first week of December. Registrations open in early November.
If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Reading, Reading, and Reading Some More
Yesterday, we came to the end of yet another batch of my reading programme for ages nine and ten. I wrote about our ‘raise hand‘ anecdote, and thinking about that made me realise – again – that the main reason I conduct reading programmes is that I enjoy them so much! Yes, I spread the love of reading and all that, but more, I love what goes into each programme. I love choosing my books, planning my activities, and then, seeing how, despite all the planning, children take the workshop in whatever direction they like!
This time, we read Karma Meets a Zombie, The Hodgeheg and When the World Went Dark. Each one was delightful in its own way.
Karma Meets a Zombie
I wrote about being a little nervous reading this one with my book club. Would it be too scary? Detachable hands, the undead – how much is too much?
Ultimately, though, it was good fun. We did a close reading of the text and then talked about what frightens us. How do we create suspense? What words do we use to make the reader feel a certain way?
The Hodgeheg
One of the joys of working with books that have been around for a long time is that author websites often have material that I can easily tweak and use for my book club! For The Hodgeheg, for instance, I found chapter-wise teaching notes, so I adapted those for my workshop. Additionally, we worked on spoonerisms based on Shel Silverstein‘s Runny Babbit, word games, and creating characters (heavily inspired by Sophie’s guest session at my writing programme last year!)
When the World Went Dark
When the World Went Dark was such an eye-opener! As we read, I realised that like Swara, the children were convinced that Pitter Paati was still alive. They had all kinds of hypotheses about what was happening in the building opposite, and each idea was fascinating. Maybe someone kidnapped Pitter Paati! Maybe there are doctors working secretly there on special people! Maybe Pitter Paati is a secret detective, so she couldn’t tell Swara what she’s doing!
So, of course, we worked on logical puzzles. I gave the children a question and a set of clues. Solving each puzzle was so rewarding!
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Rise of the Earth Dragon (Dragon Masters #1)
I love introducing children to book series. It’s heartwarming to see children come back to a subsequent edition of my reading programme bursting with excitement because they’re reading the next book of a series to which I introduced them! It’s happened with the hOle books, Amelia Bedelia, the A to Z Mysteries, Moin and the Monster … More often than I can count!
And the Dragon Masters is a fun, exciting series too! Rise of the Earth Dragon is the first of the series, the book where Drake discovers that he is a Dragon Master. But-but-but dragons don’t exist! They do? But what if he can’t connect with his dragon at all?
Rise of the Earth Dragon is a lovely story about new experiences, making friends, adventure and magic!
Here’s what we will do with it at my book club.
Diary of a Dragon Master
What if you were a Dragon Master? Write about your dragon! What is its name? What food does it like? What food does it dislike? What powers does it have? How does it talk to you? There’s so much we can do with this!
Characters
Rise of the Earth Dragon is full of all kinds of characters – mean, mysterious, brave, curious … Similar to an activity I did when we read The Sheep-Pig, let’s explore adjectives. What words would you use to describe Griffith, Worm, Drake and Bo?
The Next Book
The next book in the Dragon Masters series is called Saving the Sun Dragon. Look at the cover image. Who are the characters? What details do you notice? What do you think the book will be about? Use your imagination to write a blurb!
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Registrations are now closed for all batches of my reading and writing programmes. The next set of reading programmes will begin in the first week of December. Registrations open in early November.
If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Cricket for the Crocodile
I launched my online reading programme for ages seven and eight in December last year, which means that this is the sixth edition of the programme. Each time, I’ve focused on Indian books – books written by Indians, published in India or set in India – usually all three. On the whole, I’ve tried to avoid the big names in children’s literature, mainly because one of the goals of the book club is to introduce children to books they might not otherwise read. Yet I have included well-known names – Roald Dahl and Dick King-Smith twice each, for instance!
And so, this time, I’m introducing a book by Ruskin Bond, Cricket for the Crocodile. It’s shorter than the books we usually read, but that should give us more time for bookish activities!
Ranji is determined to be a Test cricketer, and his team comes from different parts of town. Sometimes, they even need to let the adults take part because finally, their equipment and pocket money is supplied by the grown-ups. It’s just a hardship they must bear. A regular spectator at their cricket matches is Nakoo, a crocodile who lives in the river. During a match against their regular rivals, the village boys, Nakoo sneaks out and becomes more than just a silent spectator, leading to much hilarity and quite a memorable match!
Told in Ruskin Bond’s signature style, Cricket for the Crocodile sparkles with humour and fun. Here’s what we’ll do with the book at my reading programme!
Alliteration
Playing with alliteration and tongue twisters never becomes stale. We’ll begin by revising the term alliteration and we’ll go on to creating alliterative titles that follow the same pattern – Badminton with Bandicoots! Football with Foxes! What else?
Moving on from here, we will also play with tongue twisters. Children (and adults!) adore tongue twisters!
Invent a Game
This is an imaginative activity, which requires a lot more time than the ones I usually do at my book club. I will give each child a list of things that they can use to make up a game of their own.
For example, you have a red ball, a yellow ball and a stopwatch. What’s the game going to be?
More Games
A book about a sport is also the perfect introduction to more games that we can play together. From vocabulary to word puzzles and guessing games, we can do all kinds of things that promise to be fun!
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Registrations are now closed for all batches of my reading and writing programmes. The next set of reading programmes will begin in the first week of December. Registrations open in early November.
If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
The Vampire Boy
The Vampire Boy by Sharanya Deepak is another delightful hOle book – quirky and unique.
The government has decided that all children – including young vampires – must go to school. What is Kristofer to do? He knows he will be shunned, but off he goes, only to meet with curiosity and bullying. In a way that is perfect for this age-group, humour underlines everything that happens to Kristofer. Soon, he makes friends with not just Bo, but also Bran, the class bully. Together, they go to school, they go on a camp, and they even catch a chicken thief!
I’m waiting to read it at the October edition of my online reading programme. Here’s what I plan to do with it.
Book Discussion
Kristofer is a vampire who hates blood!
As this is the first book we will be reading together, a good way to begin is with a discussion on what makes us similar to and different from our friends and family. For example, perhaps all your friends love Geronimo Stilton and you do too. On the other hand, perhaps all your friends love cricket and you hate it. Let’s get to know one another!
Number Games
Kristofer loves numbers. He counts the stars in the sky. He counts blades of grass. He counts the number of grey hairs in Mr Gazillion’s head.
One of the reasons I choose a hOle book for each reading programme is that the entire set is perfect in terms of length. We have the time to read, share opinions and play games that link reading to other ideas and subjects. With The Vampire Boy, I look forward to playing number games with the children. From multiplication Bingo to counting games, there’s so much we can do with numbers!
The Five Senses
Bran and Bo are so noisy that no creatures in the forest come close to them. Yet, the great banyan tree is like magic, its leaves lit with fireflies.
This leads us to a lovely imaginative activity. Listening to a little music, the children will imagine what they can see, smell, hear, taste and feel in the forest. I’m intrigued to know what their responses will be!
Join a programme!
Registrations are now closed for all batches of my reading and writing programmes. The next set of reading programmes will begin in the first week of December. Registrations open in early November.
If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Raise Hand
Children will be mischievous. They will always, always try to find ways to fool their teachers. The most common excuse during virtual sessions?
“I lost connection.”
Much as children like to believe otherwise, teachers can tell when children aren’t attentive. They stare at the screen and their eyes glaze over. At my book club, I know they aren’t reading along. For one, they shouldn’t be looking at the screen at all. If they’re gazing at the screen, they’re doing something else. Of course.
But when I ask them a question linked to what we’re reading, pat comes the response, “Sorry, I lost my connection. I don’t know where we are.”
So, yesterday, I told the children, very casually, to raise their hands immediately if they lose track. “Don’t wait until I ask you to read. If you lose your connection and can’t find where we are, raise your hand!”
I could see the bewilderment. A new plan was needed, and fast!
“But on my screen … I don’t have … There’s no ‘raise hand’ button on Meet!”
“Your real hand,” I said. “Just put your real hand up.”
The idea was clearly new to the child.
My real hand? Really?
Ah, virtual world problems.
Book Club Discussions
We just finished reading Sandy to the Rescue, the first of five books we’ll be reading at this edition of my book club. One of the joys of reading the hOle books at the reading programme is that the length is perfect. We have enough time to read and do activities during each session, which, for me, is what a book club is about.
In Sandy to the Rescue, six-year-old Aftab hides first under the dining table and then in the bath tub.
This made me ask the children, “Where would you hide? If you had to smuggle a friend into your house, what would be a hiding place?”
We discussed the storage cupboard, a balcony with newspapers (ideal for a little cushioning) and under the bed. I then led them to another activity – finding a hiding place for something a little smaller, like a secret note, perhaps. What could they write in the note? That led me to an unexpected discussion because one of the things I told them they could write about was what they’re afraid of.
“I’m afraid of God,” said one child.
I could see that this was a new thought for several of the others because they were thinking of other things that, maybe, they thought were more trivial.
Even so, one child said, “I’m afraid of dogs. I don’t like it when they come close.”
Unexpectedly, a child piped up, “Oh, I’m more afraid of zebras! Dogs are nice. Zebras are frightening.”
Before I had the time to process this, a fourth child said, “I’m afraid of cancer. It is the scariest thing in the world.”
Somehow, the conversation around cancer continued, with one child saying that cancer has a cure, so she’s not afraid of it.
“But cancer kills people!”
“But it doesn’t have to. You can fight it. Anyone can fight cancer.”
“No, it is frightening, and–“
The conversation went on until one child asked, “Could we stop talking about cancer?”
And we did. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it.
Immediately, another child said, “I’m afraid of floods. Floods are the scariest of all.”
And that’s a thought that hadn’t struck me. Why is she afraid of floods? I asked her if she had ever seen a flood and she shook her head. But what causes that fear?
After the session was over, I began to think about what scared me as a child and what scares me now. Are we so frank about what really frightens us?
The Hodgeheg
I love Dick King-Smith‘s work. There was a time when I read nothing except his books. I devoured story after story, the way children do when they get hooked on to an author. I remember just one book I didn’t enjoy – Godhanger. But everything else? I loved.
And so, when I contacted my usual independent bookstores who supply the books for my reading programmes, I told them I would like anything by him. I would have loved The Merrythought or Saddlebottom, but just click on those links to find out how they’re priced!
The Hodgeheg is one of my favourites too! It’s a sweet story about one determined hedgehog who makes it his mission to find out how to cross a road safely. How do humans cross? Can’t a hedgehog do the same? Here’s what we’ll do with this book at my book club.
Slang
The Hodgeheg begins with another hedgehog having ‘copped it’. Later on, we have the phrase ‘that’s flat’.
What do these phrases mean? The way in which words and phrases develop regional variations is fascinating. I remember reading the phrase ‘I bet a monkey’ while I was reading Georgette Heyer. I first thought Heyer was just being funny. I looked it up and discovered that a monkey is British slang for five hundred pounds, American slang for five hundred dollars, and Australian slang for – wait for it – a sheep!
We’ll look at a few funny phrases from different parts of the world; I can’t wait to see what we’ll discover!
Unscramble
When the hedgehog Max is hit on the head, his words come out all scrambled, which is what gives the book its name.
Of course, this leads to a simple, fun activity – unscrambling letters to make words, putting words in the right order to create sentences, and putting lines in the right order to create a poem.
Creating Characters
The first thing that sets Max apart is his name. But there’s more to Max than a unique name. What makes a character leap out of the pages?
As my reading programme for ages nine and ten has a strong creative writing component, we will use the text to work on creating memorable characters. If you have a character that your readers will root for, your story is already half done!
Join a programme!
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS READING PROGRAMME.
The next batch begins in the first week of October. If you would like to receive an email notification when I open for registrations, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
