THE SEED (a bilingual book from India)

Since there is motivation galore right now at Saffron Tree, it could not get easier for me to slouch down to write, combating the chaos generated in the room by my DH and his little associate. The book I am going to review is bilingual, meant for the 3+ age group, that I picked up during my trip to India last year. The two languages involved are Tamil (a South Indian language which is spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, which also happens to be my native language) and English. It is published by Tulika . Tulika also has the equivalent of it in 6 other Indian languages. The title of the book is THE SEED, vidhai , written and illustrated by Deepa Balsavar,Tamil by Karkuzhali. Check out http://www.tulikabooks.com/bilingualbooks6.htm for your language.

A small girl chances upon a tiny seed, puts it in a pot, waters it and takes care of it. The ecstasy from seeing it sprout soon morphs into heaps of anticipation. Will it have flowers? Will it have fruits? Will it grow tall? Will it stay small? are some of the questions that she tries to find answers to, from her near and dear. The climax is that the little girl ceases to question and realizes that what it turns out to be or how it looks like doesn't really matter to her (and that she will always love it)!

Colorful and child-friendly illustrations, an Indian backdrop, some stylish art of botany encompassing minimal text. Neat. There is always a BUT - (a long pause), can't quite put my finger on it though. Moving on with the kudos, I really liked it for the incident that unraveled the thoughts of the deceptively little mind. The book has a dozen simple sentences, in English, on the top of the page and the Tamil equivalent of it at the bottom. The language, at least in the Tamil version, is very conversational and hence practical. Although I did not purchase the book in a vigorous attempt to make my daughter speak/write/read Tamil, the fact that she has, quite effortlessly, picked up the equivalents to seed, water, sun, pot, tree, tall, small in a second language does make me feel good. Bilingual books have come to be embraced by many, especially by people raising children away from 'home'. The Seed is right for the right reasons.

The World of Indian Stories

The World of Indian Stories(a teaching resource of folktales from every state) by CATHY SPAGNOLI



As the title of the book suggests, this book is a compilation of folktales from the twenty nine states of India. Before we start with the actual stories, we have the map of India in which the storytelling method unique to that state is mentioned with an illustration. For example “Villupaattu” is mentioned for Tamilnadu. It immediately brought to my mind the famous villupattu singer Sri Subbu Arumugam whose villupattu performances I have seen and enjoyed as a kid on the TV . People hailing from the southern part of India will also be familiar with “Yakshagana” of Karnataka and "Kathakali" of Kerala. It is very interesting to read about the various storytelling forms of India even for us adults.



Then we come to the actual stories. I have not yet read all the stories. At the beginning of each story, a few lines have been written on the historical significance, geography and the local culture of that state. The stories themselves have some theme which links to that state.



For example the story from Kerala has “Kalaripayattu” (the martial art form unique to Kerala) as the backdrop. These stories also give us (the parents) an opportunity to add on more details, as we start reading. When I was narrating this story to my four and a half year old son, I added these details like “See the boy in this story is from the city of Kozhikode. Do you remember we have also been to Kerala? Last year we went to Munnar, which is a hill station. And your friend M is also from Kerala. The people there speak Malayalam. That’s why M and her family speak in Malayalam at home. This “Kalaripayttu” is a martial art form just like you have karate, kung fu etc. Do you know any other martial art forms?” and so on.



After the story is completed, there are activities which would be interesting for the bigger kids (in the book it is mentioned for kids between 6 years and 12 years) and other topics of discussion which would give the children a lot more to think about.



In this book Cathy has also given lot of storytelling tips, the significance of story telling in education and further resources for reading to children. (I am happy to say that one of the further resources mentioned is a book by my cousin Devika Rangachari. It is titled “Stories from Rajatarangini – Tales of Kashmir”.



So to summarise, I would say that this book is a must for people who want to expose their children to the diverse cultural entity that India is. It is a fantastic resource for parents and teachers who want to improve on their storytelling skills.

Dear Readers -

We at Saffron Tree are indeed very happy to announce that we have been nominated for the 2006 Indi Bloggie Awards in the Best New IndiBlog category.

Thanks to all the readers for nominating Saffron Tree at the awards. We appreciate your support and encouragement.

Congratulations to all of us in the Saffron Tree blog team!

Congrats to all the other nominees in the different categories - The Mad Momma, Great Bong, and last but not the least three cheers for the entire Indian Food blog community - Indira's Mahanandi deserves a special mention!

We are thankful to the people involved in this great effort for their time - thanks to the jury and the sponsors who have come forward to support the blogging community!

The voting is going on now and would be open until 20th Feb. In order to vote, you need to register with a valid email address.

Thank you all once again!

Aparna, Meera, Praba, Ranjani, Sathish & Tharini

Beautiful Bananas

A year or two back, we accidently came across the book called 'Beautiful Bananas'. One look at the colour and illustrations made us buy the book immediately. The book was gifted to Sooraj by one of Ranjani's close friends. The book is written by Elizabeth Laird and the colourful illustrations are by Liz Pichon.



It is a wonderful story is based in Africa. It is the story of Beatrice who decides to visit her grandfather with a bunch of bananas as a present to him. The story starts with her wishing mother good-bye; as she starts her trek through a forest to reach her grandpa. On the way, many colour ful animal characters come and play an important role in the story.



She meets a giraffe first, which accidently flicks its tufty tail and the bananas fly away from Beatrice's hands. Beatrice is crestfallen; but, giraffe puts smile back into her face by picking up some flowers for her. Beatrice decides to take these flowers instead of bananas to her grandpa. Soon, flowers attract some excited bees and the flowers get crushed by them. Bees feel sorry too; and decide to give her something else for the trouble they caused. And so on, the story continues with many other wonderful animals creating a loss for Beatrice, but, providing her with an alternative for the trouble they caused her. Finally, before she reaches her grandpa, she gets back the bunch of bananas she had lost initially.



It is a wonderful circular story. This is what Elizabeth Laird says about this book -- "I heard so many wonderful circular stories when I was collecting tales in Ethiopia that this one just seemed to write itself. And Liz Pichon's pictures are perfect."



Liz Pichon's illustrations are absolutely great. The illustrations are very colourful, bright and teeming with life. All the animals have a beautiful smile on their faces (even the bees). As the review in Publisher's Weekly about this book points out - every page in the book has a rather mysterious looking eyes that peep out from behind the leaves. There is no mention about this animal/bird at all in the whole book. It would be a fun exercise to find out these mysterious eyes in every page along with your kid. Also, the size of animals do not always correlate to real life; for example in a page where Beatrice is talking with a parrot; the parrot looks bigger and massive than the girl. But, this does not take away the fun and enjoyment of the illustrations.



The last page is a great treat as Beatrice reaches her Grandpa's place to meet him. There is great excitement in air and all the animals(including the mysterious eyes) that she met on her way look out eagerly from behind the trees as Beatrice rushes to hug her grandpa with her present - the beautiful bananas.



It is a story where humans and animals talk with each other kindly and can understand each other very well and live in great harmony. Wish the world is like this too! My only regret is the name of the character - Beatrice. It somehow seems to be out of place for a story set in Africa. I wish they had chosen some other name.



Update #1: Ranjani corrected me. We did not buy the book as I mentioned above initially, rather, it was gifted to us by one of our friends coming back from UK. The book is published by Oxford University Press.

One More Story....

OneMoreStory.com is a subscription based storytime website with a collection of over 40 popular picture books. I signed up for this last November for my 4 yr old. I paid 50 dollars, and it's valid for a whole year of online story time that I can access from anywhere just with a userid and password.

It features several popular titles, and some of them are from one of our favorite publishers Kane/Miller, which itself according to me makes the subscription worth it. The books come with multimedia effects, and can be very entertaining for little children and adults like me!

Sit with your kids and join the fun when someone else is reading to your kids on Onemorestory(for once, hahn?) I should admit, I have been very impressed with the way the stories are read. The sound effects are excellent! There is enough number of books to keep your preschooler busy for months. I think the site plans to put up 108 e-picturebooks within the next few years!

Most of us have taken our kids to storytime here in the U.S. at local libraries. I have always felt how wonderful it would be if kids in other countries, particularly in India where I grew up, get to experience this nice opportunity in their local libraries too. Well, Onemorestory.com is as close it can get to a library storytime in the U.S. Children can have access to a great collection of stories for a little over a dollar per book. Community centers/libraries/schools can get subscription to this site in other countries. I would assume that a subscription to this site is possible if you pay with their credit cards. For people living outside, I would suggest that you to write to them to find out how to go about getting an account if you are interested.

When we take our kids to the local library for storytime, we do take the time to drive them, sit with them, and enjoy the stories being read to. Similarly with Onemorestory.com, I would encourage we sit with our kids and enjoy some quiet listening time with them, and then follow it up with a little discussion! It's definitely worth spending the buck(instead of spending on some cheezy toy) and the time, of course! Such storytime opportunities online may also prove helpful to bilingual families in the U.S. who cannot read books in English to their children due to language based barriers.

Here's a title that is my daughter's favorite on Onemorestory.com:

Guji, Guji - a fabulous tale from Taiwan filled with humor and wit - a clever,clever story!

Here's a quick review on this wonderful book!

A crocodile's egg ends up in a duck's nest. Mama Duck doesn't notice (she was reading a book!) The large-oversized egg eventually hatches, and out emerges this large nosed reptile screaming Guji,Guji! Guji,Guji grows up with the other three ducky siblings! Mamma duck doesn't say anything bad about the way Guji,Guji looks, and takes him as he is! Life is great for Guji,Guji, but one day he meets three other nasty crocodiles who tell him that he doesn't belong with the ducks, and should in fact be eating ducks, not living with them. The crocodiles tell Guji,Guji to bring his duck family to the bridge and that he should have them dive in to end up in their mouths. But Guji Guji comes up with a plan to save his duck family. He loves being a "crocoduck"!

Such a cute, modern tale so much better than one of those old "The Ugly Duckling" types! We love Guji, Guji! Thanks to the author, Chih-Yuan Chen for such a brilliant story! Lovely illustrations that are very cleverly done! Definitely going to remain one of our favorite stories for 2007!

Guji,Guji was first published in the U.S. in 2004 by Kane/Miller. Spanish paperback to be released in March 2007.

One of the other titles we have enjoyed on Onemorestory is Owl Babies - By Martin Waddell (click here for the review on this book last December by Meera Sriram)

My Mother's Sari: By Sandhya Rao and Illustrated by Nina Sabnani

My Mother's Sari: North-South Books

The first thing you notice when you open this book is the use of a very interesting illustration style - on every page the illustrator, Nina Sabnani, has mixed photographs of real saris with paintings/drawings of little children playing with the saris, resulting in a visually appealing, vibrant artwork.

This picture book captures the different ways a child chooses to play with a sari - to explore, dream and play innocent games. For example, on one page, we see a little girl using her mother's sari as a hammock, and on another - a safe blanket for a nap; one using as a slide; another as a rope to climb; a little boy playing train around his mother's sari etc. etc..Here's a funny one - a little kid even wipes his nose on his mother's sari! :-)

This book is sure eye candy! We enjoyed the text, but, honestly I would have loved to see more text with the visuals. Reading it the first time with my 4 yr old, I felt, it's definitely one of those books that make you go Wow! - but, is that all - why did it have to end so fast? I thought, the text on each page should have been at least half the length of a sari, if not the whole length! :-)May be, the author kept the text simple in order to let the visuals do the talking, and thereby allowing the child to focus on the beauty and elegance of the different sari pictures, and imagine herself/himself in the visuals...It can serve as a great "read-it-yourself" book for kindergarteners and kids in early elementary grades.

Playful and fun, this book will capture the imagination of toddlers and preschoolers alike. My 4 yr old enjoyed the book. I could tell from the expression in her eyes - yet another neat book to add to my collection of books about India!

Oh, here's the icing - the end-cover actually demonstrates step-by-step instructions on how to wear a sari...A great window to Indian culture for children from everywhere, and great for my daughter's pretend play dress-up in Sari sessions- she actually uses a "Dupata" instead of a Sari - I don't think I would want to part with my Saris in order to encourage my little girl's fantasy plays - I guess most Moms would agree with me - we are very possessive of our Saris, aren't we?:-)