Thursday, June 18, 2009

Colour Colour Kamini

Hey! I made it to the prestigious Saffron Tree blog. Thanks Praba for giving me an opportunity.

This review is also cross posted at my blog here.

We've become members of a wonderful children's book library and one of our favorite activities is to head there and pick books that we can enjoy. I am so grateful that Poppin shares my passion for books and has to be dragged back home after our visits.

One such book we are reading now and we both love is Colour Colour Kamini by Radhika Chadda, illustrated by Priya Kurian (Tulika Publishers)

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This book is set in the jungle and is the story of Kamini, the chameleon. The story begins with Kamini practicing colour matching (with her surroundings) along with her friends (whose names all start with K!) under the tutelage of Kapila Aunty, an older chameleon.

Unfortunately for Kamini, unlike her peers, she can never get the colours right. Instead she gets very excited and starts to flash colours. She changes from Red to Green to Indigo to Silver..hence the name Colour Colour Kamini.

She is mighty frustrated by this, because she knows she can match colours very well when she's alone, but she always fails when she's with Kapila aunty, simply because she gets too excited. And so, she confides her problems to her best friend Bahadur the elephant.

How Bahadur uses this quality in Kamini to solve the problem of the teenage elephants in the jungle forms the rest of the story.

Since my almost four year old daughter, Poppin tends to clam up in public, I'm always looking out for stories that work that angle. Yet, I'm loathe to read books that tackle the problem directly (such as books on shy children etc), because I don't want her to become overly conscious of it and clam up further. Neither do I want her to feel that there is something wrong with her.

This book is great because it sends two messages to her (1) There are people who can do things well in private but fail in public simply because they are too excited/nervous. (2) Even an apparent defect can be used in a way that makes it seem like a talent!

What I love about the book apart from the message is the artwork. Everyone who reads children's books knows that Tulika books are great with the illustrations. The drawings and the colours are so vibrant and therefore automatically interest the child.

I also loved the colloquial language, 'colour-colour', 'colour matching', 'Akka/Anna', 'Aunty'. Very close to home. They also have this book in Kannada, so now that will be our next read!

Recommended reading aloud: 3 years +

Read alone: 6 years +

Posted by Poppy of Babies Anonymous


10 comments:

Praba Ram said...

Welcome aboard, Poppin's Mom!! Great to have you here. An honor indeed for us! Another Bangalore parent now in the team - yay!! :-)

Awesome review! I will pick it up this time while in Chennai. Thank you for a great pick. We love Tulika here on ST!!

sathish said...

welcome to ST, Poppin's Mom.

Have fun and Hope to see more similar interesting recommendations.

ranjani.sathish said...

Hi poppin's mom !
Welcome to ST. Nice review and thanks for the pointer to your library. It seems an interesting place to check out. We are members of Hippocampus library (Koramangala branch). They too have an awesome collection of children's books.

Poppins said...

@Praba: Thanks for the warm welcome!

@Satish: I love your reviews, I hope to be regular myself.

@Ranjani: I've never visited Hippocampus although I've heard great things about it. Someday I hope.

Marjorie said...

This sounds such a delightful book - and really interesting the point you make about it being a useful, not-down-your-throat tool for your daughter.

Poppins said...

@Marjorie: Thank you for your kind comment! The book is indeed lovely.

chica said...

Hi, I am commenting in this post, but my comment is not with regards to the book. I would like to know if any of the reviewers of ST have a recommendation for "good touch bad touch" books for girls aged 7. Would you even recommend it for that age.
Haven't found any book which would be available in India. Thanks.

Lakshmi -Celebrations said...

Awesome blog.i am glad to have found it.

Arpita said...

Lovely post! This is a family favourite. In fact, the other day I had on a multicoloured scarf and my daughter said "now you are a colour colour kamini"!

Sheela said...

Both the 5- and 2-year old love this book! Especially when Kamini flashes colors... the illustrations are so bright and colorful. Thanks, PM!

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