MINJI'S SALON

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Eun-hee Choung
AGE GRP: 3-5 yrs
SPANISH language edition also available

“An ode to the power of children's imaginations (and their parents' patience), Minji's Salon reminds readers that creativity and play are worldwide phenomena.”
is what the publisher Kane Miller rightly claims.

Yet another book on pretend-playing and dress-up that I got my hands on, but the overdose doesn’t seem to tire my 4 year old girl!

A simple story line. Mother visits the local salon for a vivid red color and a fancy haircut. Daughter creates a make-believe salon at home assuming the role of the stylist. The guinea pig is her dog companion at home. Smell chaos already? Wait until you see what Minji is up to.

Something really neat in the book is the juxtaposition of equivalent scenes, the city salon on one side and Minji’s home base on the other. This presentation makes it easy for the child to get a grasp of the hilarious on goings in parallel. While the rendezvous of the mom with her stylist progresses on the left, Minji’s date with her canine friend evolves on the right. Similar drill, dialogues and drama. An ice-cream concoction for color, crayons for holding the fuzz, generous use of water colors – all to simulate the hairdresser’s paraphernalia and perform the shear act on her own specimen. Can you imagine the predicament of the dog? Visuals just enough to make the little reader giggle or guffaw.

Another observation would be the fact that mom’s proceedings happen in a confined rectangular window while Minji’s play has no defined boundaries (on the pages), clearly portraying how a child’s imagination has no bounds, whatsoever! And this is the central idea of the book.

Mom is back, pretty and perky. Her initial shock softens into surprise and then a sweet tolerance takes over even as she stands there encompassed in total mess. A feeling that mothers all around the world can comfortably relate to.

“ My goodness! Are you the owner of the salon?”
“Yes Madam. Would you like to make an appointment?”

We see no end to Minji’s frolic. However the book comes to an end with a picture of Minji staring at a mannequin through the glass window of a city store, not to forget the bright red oversized stilettos she has gotten herself into!

Eun-hee Choung lives in South Korea, academically qualified in art and illustration. And I can safely conclude that she has done adequate justice to the above fact in Minji’s salon where visuals dominate text.

MY FRIEND JAMAL

STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY: ANNA MCQUINN
ARTWORK: BEN FREY
AGE GRP: 4-7 YRS.

The book is a boy’s narration of his culturally diverse yet completely uncomplicated friendship with another boy his age. In other words it is a celebration of an unadulterated friendship that oversteps borders, religion and culture.

Our little narrator, Joseph, introduces to us readers, his friend Jamal of Somali origin, however, born in the same hospital as him, the same month! After sharing with us the staples of their friendship built on activities and interests that are typical to boys their age, Joseph lets us into more unexpected specifics. This includes Jamal being a Muslim, Jamal’s dietary restrictions (both cultural and health-related) and an analysis of Jamal’s household - how pasta is served with banana toppings and how his family dines on the floor, more like a picnic! In fact, something that, in my opinion, felt very real and down-to-earth were these lines –

Sometimes I go to Jamal’s house.
It smells different from ours because his mom cooks with special spices.

Isn’t it true that something as simple and different as this can actually be acknowledged and reasoned out by the innocent mind? And books that carry such thoughts, I believe, can provoke and aid open healthy discussions of complex issues of the real world with a growing child.

Marching on, the pages are filled with fun and precious details of their likes and dislikes, commonalities and differences, - about superhero games, basketball teams and automobile preferences, all sure to score a three-pointer with any male child! Joseph then narrates more about the prayer routine he witnesses at Jamal’s, the Koran in Arabic that his friend talks about and the war and fighting in Somalia from which the family fled. What catches the reader’s attention is the non-judgmental and intrigued tone with which the small boy speaks. In fact, everything that revolves around Jamal with whom Joseph shares his life is probably diametrically in contrast to his own settled Christian life and yet he nonchalantly accepts Jamal and his family.

This book can be an ideal pick for discussing cross-cultural friendships with children. The details though raw are real and gentle. The author Anna McQuinn was raised in Ireland and now lives in England adding titles like Lola at the library and Wanda’s washing machine to her credit. The illustrations are a combination of photography and art – bold, colorful and explicit, just as the front cover indicates.

A wonderful work that showcases how children adjust and adapt to strikingly contrasting cultural canvases while holding on to their own individualistic identities, something that nature and puerility seem to take care of.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

One of Arthur C. Clarke's famous laws of prediction is --

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."





One of the great magics for me in my life is the medium of cinema. Cinema has the ability to create life, destroy it, re-imagine it and turn it topsy-turvy in seconds. Sometimes, I feel movies makes one a voyeur -- making us peek in characters, emotions, desires of imaginary, nevertheless real people. Sometimes, I wonder if the people in the cinema can look back at us, voyeurs in great groups, watching their every move.



It is about this great magic called the movie that this wonderful book called - The Invention of Hugo Cabret deals with.



The book is a combination of multi-page illustrations with some pages with written words. It is a massive book, a replacement for a pillow! But, one could easily complete the book in an hour; and keep coming back to it in order dig deep into the illustrations and the words.



The book starts with an introduction by Professor H. Alcofrisbas as he starts describing the story about the kid called Hugo Cabret, living in 1931, whose life changes forever during the course of this story. Hugo Cabret lives inside the railway station and makes sure all the clocks in the railway station are running properly. He is not the official time keeper; but, his uncle is. His uncle had disappeared some time back, but none of the railway official know about it. Although, the railway officer keeps dropping off the monthly cheques for the time keeper's job; Hugo Cabret does not know how to use them. So, they keep accumulating, while Hugo steals food from the various shops in the railway station to keep himself alive.



He has one goal in his life - He has some set of drawings in a treasured notebook and an automaton that does not work. But, he thinks his father had got it to work, just before he died in the fire accident. He gets the automaton and the drawings and starts working on getting the automaton to work. He feels that once he gets it to work, he would be able to read some cryptic message from his father.



One day, he gets caught by a grumpy old man who lives by selling toys near to the railway station. The old man snatches the notebook with drawings from him and keeps it to himself. The old man refuses to give it back. The old man's granddaughter, a girl who reads a lot of books, promises to retrieve it for Hugo Cabret.



The rest of the story is about how the girl and Hugo Cabret retreive the book and try to understand the mystery and the hidden message in the automaton. I would not reveal more than this. But, the rest of the story leads to the story of the Georges Milies, the creator of the first science fiction movie in the history of world cinema - A trip to the moon



It is great combination of fictionalizing based on a real person and a real movie and writing a story around it. It would be a great read and source of entertainment for kids above 10+ (or any one who can start reading English). I enjoyed it a lot. Why don't you try it too?

Children's Book related special Events in April - Launching Bloomwatch Newsletter

April Showers Bring May flowers...
Saffrontree's April flowers Bring a Bloomwatch bouquet for Children's Booklovers!

Tulip blossoms, green grass, daffodil blooms.... When everything grows and grows in Spring, so do the flowers on Saffron Tree!

Spring is a perfect time to plant bright new beginnings in celebration of the season. We, at Saffron Tree, plan to bring to you a newsletter of events called "Bloomwatch" centering around children's books and diversity each month on the first Sunday. Together, let's grow our little bookworms and sprout their tastebuds by reading an eclectic variety of books!

As always any thoughts/suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Here's the first newsletter giving you a list of special days and events for the month of April.

Bloomwatch: Issue # 1

1) Author Highlight/Birthday: Danish poet and children's book author, Hans Christian Andersen (also refered to as H.C. Andersen) was born on April 2nd 1805. He is most well-known for his fairy tales. "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling" are some of the most popular stories written by him that have been translated into many different languages, and have sold millions of copies all over the world. International Children's Book Day is celebrated on Andersen's Birthday. According to the International Board on Books for Young People, the day is celebrated "To inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children's books." Let's come together this April to share the stories of H.C. Andersen with our children.


2) Earth Day: Every year many countries around the world celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd to raise awareness about the planet and earth's environment. This is a great time to share with your children do-you-own special arts/crafts using recycled materials, play games and read books on reducing, reusing and recycling. Take the time and the opportunity to talk about our planet, its fragile ecosystems and the natural environment. Plant a tree or sprout a seed! There are also many Earth Day topical books that you can bring to your children's attention - here's one book that was reviewed on Saffron Tree for last year's Earth Day - http://www.saffrontree.org/2007/04/this-book-is-not-trash_21.html. Let's join hands and save our planet for our children's future.

3) National Poetry Month: World Poetry Day was celebrated on the 21st of March this year all over the world. It's National Poetry Month in the U.S every April. Spring Blossoms can definitely inspire reading and writing of poetry. To honor the season and the poetic mood it offers, let's look for resources online and play rhyme-time games with our children to encourage the love of poetry starting at a very early age... A for Acrostics, C for Couplets, H for Haiku, L for Limericks are a few words you can introduce to your children's growing vocabulary. Let's grow their linguistic skills and get them to be budding poets early on. We all have read nursery rhymes of some sort or the other to our children during their early childhood stages. And we know little ones love rhyme/meter. Let's keep their interest in rhymes/poems alive. You may want to look for teacher guides offered by publishing companies and other online language arts resources - Here's one you may want to look into and there are tons like these - http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/k_2theme/poetry.htm

4) Holiday Highlight: Passover The Jewish Holiday of Passover, one of the three pilgrim festivals, is celebrated every Spring. Let's open our children's minds to pilgrim and immigrant stories from other cultures that celebrate freedom.

Thanks, and see you on our next edition of Bloomwatch!