Sunday, March 14, 2010

Glo Adventurer Journey to India

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Wrote William Blake about tigers. It was and is not yet clear to me if Blake was in awe of this creature or in awe of the creator of this mighty creature. I could never understand this poem, but, these famous lines have always remained in some dark recess in my mind. and Oh! I wonder what he would have written about dinosaurs!! Alright, alright!! I will leave aside my musings about this poem for another day and come to the point regarding why I started thinking about this poem.

Thanks to a friend, Ranjani and I recently came across a new magazine for children everywhere about India called Glo Adventurer Journey to India. We found it interesting and ordered the free trial issue. And we were hooked!

The magazine takes an interesting approach to publishing. Every issue of the magazine would exclusively be oriented towards one subject. The first issue is related to Indian tigers and amazingly well done. It is an all colour magazine. I love the fact that it has no advertisements. I am not sure how long they can keep up with this line of thought, but I love their gumption to try out something different.

We, in India, are currently in midst of a great media onslaught about tigers. Almost every media celebrity comes on the television and says 'Save the Tiger'. None of them seem to answer the question how/what can we, the folks living in cities and have never seen a tiger except in television or a zoo nearby, do to save the tiger. Every one of these celebrities say with great earnestness - "I have joined the fight to save the tiger. Will you?"; What are they doing? What is the action being taken? What are tigers and what do we know about them - apart from the fact that they are striped and India's national animal? The first step towards saving is to understand about them. The first issue of this magazine is a great introduction to tigers and their lives.

The first issue deals with a day in the life of a tiger, the different types of tigers, the tiger reserves of India, what do they eat and the relation ship between them and us(the human beings), a short story(written by Swami) , lots of fun facts, games and a great collection of tiger photographs. There are a few tiny stick-ons spread across the magazine called Words Worth that shares the meaning of a particularly hard English word that was used in the magazine. That sure would be a great help for the kids.

Sooraj enjoyed the magazine and I have noticed him a few times, lazily turning the pages and looking at the various photographs and reading the fun facts spread through the magazine.

I know we should not judge a magazine based on a single issue. But, a good beginning has been made and I am rooting for this team to succeed. One can go to their website( Glo Adventurer) to have a look at some of the sample pages. I suggest that you go to their site and subscribe for the free issue and decide for yourself.

On a related topic, our resident authors have dealt with another endangered animal of India, Asiatic Lions of Gir Forest. Do check out this wonderful book - Dinaben and the Lions of Gir by Meera Sriram and Praba Ram.

9 comments:

Choxbox said...

Sounds cool Sathish. Thanks for the reco.

Vibha said...

Impressed.
Just ordered the free issue after reading your review.

sathish said...

Thanks Chox and Vibha.

Let me know if it worked for you guys too!

Praba Ram said...

Sounds like a visually stimulating and culturally approriate magazine. Will check it out. A lot of effort must have gone into its creation.

And a wonderful review - particularly the point about helping kids relate to the animal through facts, pictures and stories. Thanks!

Meera Sriram said...

Nice to know the magazine is a hit because we are waiting for our trail issue! I am in appreciation of their unique effort and wish them all the luck in the world. BTW, do you know how young a child can be (although we could always show the pictures to the very young and use the book in different ways) to actually read the entire magazine without losing interest (since it is thematic I presume), in say couple of sessions and also understand the facts and articles to a certain extent?

sathish said...

Thank you Praba.

meera, My opinion is that this magazine is for kids above 7 years (for self reading).

Deepa said...

Hi Meera:

I am the editor of the GloAdventure magazine and just wanted to say Sathish is right:) The magazine is designed for kids 7 and above for self reading. Hopefully, it's an easy/interesting reads for the adults as well:)

We try to choose bright and colorful. So as you mention, parents can use them to engage younger kids. Thanks!

Meera Sriram said...

Thank you Sathish and Deepa for answering my question promptly. Deepa, my best wishes to your team!
We are waiting for our trial issue.

Thanks!

utbtkids said...

Comment over due.

We received the free issue 6 weeks back. We have been hooked!

I have children 5 and below. We took our time to savour the magazine. We even managed to do portions of the crossword and word find sections

We loved it.

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