A Bear called Paddington by Michel Bond

"Mumma! When we go to London, we will go to Paddington station to meet Paddington the bear" says my 7 year old.

Read on! The LO has written a review herself for this book...

Note: This review is written by my 7 year old herself! 

The story of 'A bear called Paddington' is a very funny book. In this book there are 4 main characters and they are the lady called Sarah, Sir Sealy Bloom, the Browns and of course our Paddington. This book is published for 7-10 years old. (Added later) Mumma's can read it too. My favorite part was when Mr. Curry sat down on the egg . I would give this book 3.5 out of 5. After reading this book I have named my teddy bear - Paddington. What I can also tell you that I understood is that every chapter has 2-3 funny parts. 

written by Sumedha DC

The book published by Harper Collins is illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. Apart for the cover illustration, the inside illustrations are B/W. The cover illustration is sweet and minimal and gives an underlying feel of Winnie the Pooh. 

This is the first children's book by the author& he has written a postscript at the  end of the book. He has given how this story was born and that itself is an interesting read. The author mentions how Paddington was a toy bear kept on his mantle and how he always believed him to be real. He says that it is rewarding to know how others who read the book also believe in him. What is interesting is that after the first book , a life size bronze statue of Paddington was made in honour at the Paddington Station, London. So if u happen to go to Paddington station in London , Do click a picture with this extremely adorable bear. 

The adventures of Paddington are of course funny and wrapped in a flovour of innocence.Ordinary activities become extraordinary with him. They can make you laugh silly. You can hear your little one giggling several times through the book. 8 lovable stories in the first book covered in 156 pages. The font size is decently large. 

First publish in 1958, it's a children's classic and has 12 more Paddington adventures as the series. 

A Good Read! We plan to read few more from the series. 

Read Aloud session 3 : Dragon Loves Penguin by Debi Gliori

Read Aloud session 3 : 'Dragon loves Penguin'

Children don't want to wait ; they want the story right away!

Why we chose this book?

Valentine's Day just went by! And you just cannot restrict the information and visuals 5-8 years receive and process from their environment. Roses and hugs and kiss and all that jazz around the 'Valentines Day' establishes a very skewed up image of the word Love. We wanted to read to them what other aspects of love could be. The 'unconditional' aspect of it. And celebrating our differences.....and to be kind even to the unkind! and that the greatest gifts of all is 'Time and Love'.

About the Author - Debi Gliori

Debi Gliori is a Scottish children's books writer and a mother of 5. She has a great fan following including that of J K Rowing. With more that 75 books to her credit, she has also received rave reviews about her book 'What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?'. Her personal favorite and what she is proud of is "No Matter What" - a Book about unconditional love between a 'parent and a child'.

About the Book

A book that was bought last year but is picked up again and again from the book shelf by my daughter is ‪#‎dragonlovespenguin‬ by ‪#‎debigliori‬. This books talks about how people who are radically different from us can also be loved unconditionally. It conveys how its not always blood relation that matters.A brilliant story about unconditional love. Absolutely lovable illustrations and a lovely flow with very little text. Children just love to flip through its pages again and again.

About the Read Aloud Session
Dragon loves Penguin was a very exciting session. Children had so much to add to the story & of course they had cute questions! About Antarctica and Volcanoes and about bed-time stories!

A new feature that we have started is 'book rating' by the children on the scale of 1-4, 4 being the highest rating. They must back up with reasons as to why they gave that rating.This book got - 4,4,3,4 ( rated by 4 children). We had to use the talking pillow to avoid overlapping thoughts and give enough scope to the less vocal ones to speak.

Some of the reasons to like and dislike the book are summarized below:

1. I like the entire book , the story and the pictures, so I don't know which part to say was nice. (Rated 4)
2. It's OK for them to quarrel like sometimes we do with our friends. I like the 'little one' the most. Because she was brave and kind.(Rated 4)
3. I am giving 3 because I don't like the little one getting teased. (Rated 3)
4. (Summarized the entire story) and says ' I like When the little one found an egg. I was happy when little one found an egg. It was so cute ( the story). Awesome! (Rated 4)

And 'After-craft' is now a mandatory ritual. A little physical takeaway of the story! All the mini dragons breathing fire was indeed a exciting part for all of us. You will feel all the fun in the pictures. 
Click here for more pictures
Book review here

Read Aloud Session -1 : Our Incredible Cow

I couldn't find a Book club for my LO who loves reading. Some were too far and others were too structured. 'Start one of your own' - some mothers told me. And I did! 

It has been well proven that Reading Aloud to Children has innumerable benefits for the intellectual growth of the child.Increased concentration and vocabulary, imagination and mindfulness & love for books (my favorite) are some of the many. No known demerits yet.

So, here we were with our first ever Reading Aloud Session. Neighboring children of our area were invited to attend. Mothers were also welcome to see or participate. We also chose to do some craft activities related to the book reading session as that will make it an attractive proposition for the children and the parents alike. Invites were designed and printed and distributed in the play area. Some others were invited through phone. We chose the book "the Incredible Cow' by Mahasweta Devi. our reasons to chose this book were that this was our newest book that we read many times. Our review of the book can be read here.
The other reason was that Mahasweta Devi as an author is known to many (especially in Bengal) and is incredible. The times when this book was written was when Mahasweta Devi was a budding writer. The Satyajit Ray connection was also a great convincing point for the parents to send their kids. To be honest, I had several concerns - Have i chosen the right book? Would i be able to manage many children? Would they listen to the story? Would they get the humour in it? and many many more...but of all the things, I was happy that we were starting.  And when it did , it was a roller coaster of Fun. I must add, children are so wise. They listened quietly but their minds were working loudly. They had questions and answers as well. Wild imaginations and so many facts to share. Some decided to lie down and some closed their eyes. Discussions continued over the craft sessions as well. No one was keen on going home even after 1.5 hours. 

I was able to make a paper puppet of a cow, and more than the children, the parents like it. I guess, for the children it was just a hindrance in the flight of their imagination. My cow head band was well taken by the children. 

We all made a children friendly cow puppet... a Cow that will go home and have Fish. All the giggles and laughter in the entire session were infectious. Some children who could not attend can to know of all the fun that we had. 

The Session was enriching for both of us the reader and the listener. Some lessons learnt (by me) are that too many props are a hindrance. and an important question...why did I not start earlier? 

All you need is a good book! 

Added Later : Its a Tulika Publication! And we are so glad (grinning ear to ear) that Tulika Publishers find our session "Nice". Its a Good luck Charm!! 

Our Incredible Cow by Mahasweta Devi, Illustrations Ruchi Shah

Our Incredible cow – by Mahasweta Devi

Mumma : “How was the book?”

Piku : “I am not going in front of any cow wearing blue!”

With that amusing answer as a review of a book, I didn’t know what to expect from the book.

We picked up this book at the recent children’s literature festival held in kolkata in Jan 2017. The author’s name rang a bell in our minds. We had read the ‘the why why girl’ from the same author and had liked it. An attractive blue cow cover-page illustration made us seal the deal immediately.

Why we like the book: This book surpassed our expectations that we had built from this book. This illustrated classic children’s book is amusing and comical. The story kept us in good humor from the first to the last line. The incredible cow not only is non-vegetarian, she has appetite for most unusual things.  She is radical and anti-police. She has preference for colors and chews up everything blue. The writer goes on to add a detail of mentioning that her father’s vests are till date not whitened in indigo blue against the usual practice. The little reader in my house giggled long reading that the cow’s vet had to be taken to the doctor. Ha ha! An idiom in Bengali says “Golper Goru Gaache uthe” which translates to the in a cock and bull story a cow may climb a tree. Forget trees, here she climbed up to 1^st floor.

Moreover, the equally creative illustrations by Ruchi Shah are upright to the story. They are unique, noteworthy and add up to the amusement of the story. Colorful materials like printed fabrics, sarees and embroideries from Bengal, measuring tapes, yarns ;  leaves and hay, bottles and fish and ‘what not’ has been used to form a silhouette of this incredible cow. Incredibly amusing indeed!

About the author and original story: The original story was written in Bengali. In the year 1964.

Satyajit Ray, in the year 1961, was trying to revive a children’s magazine ‘Sandesh’ which was started by his grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1913). ‘Sandesh’ the word means  ‘message’ and is also a much relished sweet in Bengal. Satyajit Ray, man who needs no introduction, was a visionary. He spotted the talent to write for children in ‘Khuku’. Khuku , the storyteller would write crazy tales of her family members and their pets. . ‘Amader Nyadosh’ the Bengali original title (translates to ‘Our Nyadosh ( name of the cow in the story;also means lazy plump and adorable) was one of her several contributions to Sandesh. She went on to become our famous writer Mahasweta Devi. Her distinguished legendary works ‘Hazar Chowrasi ki Ma’, ‘Rudaali’ is well known and were adapted to cinema. She eventually also became a social activist for the empowerment of the tribals.

Author: Mahasweta Devi

Illustrator: Ruchi Shah

No. Of Pages: 21

Reading level: 5 - 100 years

Paperback: 24 pages

Publisher: Tulika Publishers; 1 edition (2013)

Language: English and is available in 8 more languages ( Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Malyalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujrati)

ISBN-10: 9350466759

ISBN-13: 978-9350466759

Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 21.6 x 0.5 cm

Goodreads rating : 4.5/5

Amazon rating: 4.5/5

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo

I walked into her room when I saw my 7 year old lying down , eyes closed and tear drops rolling from her eyes. She sensed my presence and opened her eyes. I didn't need to ask anything. 

"Mumma! Winn-Dixie is lost" 

"I know!" 

"Then tell me if they will find him ever, sob! sob!"

"You will have to read that for yourself" 

She obviously didn't like my answer.  

Scene change - Day 2 - in the car. 

"Mumma! Keep looking outside that window, and you will get a surprize." 

"What is it that u want to show me?" 

"Wait and watch, You will be able to see it!"

"why don't you tell me what is it?" (loosing a little patience)

"Mumma! If you won't tell me if Winn Dixie would be found or not.... Then why should I? Wait and see it for yourself!" 

..................................

Because of Winn- Dixie - By Kate Dicamillo 

An emotional and enchanting read, this book is the first publication of the author. 

Apart from it being a Mesmerizing story it also talks about not going with the popular opinion about people. You must always make your own opinion. And that each one of us is lovable. And sometimes people make friends in a roundabout manner. And that age is just a no. And .... 

Honestly speaking , quite a many takeaways from the book. And a very beautiful and lovable real life like story. Beware, if your child is the fairy tale types then it may be a little heavy for them. You can expect a few giggles here and there as well. We would have loved a few illustrations but, I guess ,imagination played its role in the absence of it. 

We haven't seen it, but it was converted into a motion picture in 2005. 

Age Recommendation- 7+ 

No. Of Pages - 159

Publishers - Walker Books 

Published in - 2000

Author - A very adorable - Kate Dicamillo 

Who won the Newberry honor for this book and some others as well. Not that it matters to me but she is New York Times best selling author. This book has been translated into 30 languages. 

Goodreads rating - 4/5

Common sense media - 5/5

Our Rating - 5/5

'I Wonder' by Annaka Harris

Rain! 

10 o'clock in the night, it was raining outside my bedroom window. This rain was after a month of scorching heat that Kolkata had never witnessed before. Me and my almost 7yr old daughter were busy in our bedtime ritual of reading a book in a air-conditioned room, back of mind stressing about sleeping on time, school, homework, verbs and multiplication tables. 

The sound of raindrops on our window panes was so welcoming. We opened the windows and let the drizzle touch our arms. It touched our souls. We sat on the window sil in silence, leaning on each other just watching the rain. Those moments were healing moments from the stress of the clock. 

The next night, we waited, but it didn't rain. My daughter didn't want to read the book that we were reading. After a while, she ran and got this one from the library. 

A book with illustrations that touch ur heart. Visuals that tinkle similar emotions that we felt that rainy night. A little girl and her mum - on the beach - in the forest - with reflections in the water - of the clouds. And conversations between them that go beyond science. A book that leads you to discovery of things without loosing the romance of it. 

I had purchased this book from the Facebook group that sells children's books. Sometimes u find books like these. A Book that has recieved all praise from wide spectrum of people from the academic world - Professors of Psychology and Professors of Physics and Astronomy , Neuro- Scientists and children's writers. 

Writer : Annaka Harris 

ILlustrator : John Rowe

Goodreads Rating : 4.2/5

Our Rating - Highly recommended for reading together with ur children.

Published by: Four Elephants Press, US

Age Recommendations : 2 and up. 

Publishers age reco : 1 and up. 

The book is available on Amazon.in in India and has a kindle version as well. 

Charlotte's Web by E.B.White

Dad: "Its10:30pm, you could now keep the book down and go to sleep!"

6 year old : (showing the back cover) "See, what is written here - 'No Child should be without a Copy' .! 

The book is Charlotte's Web, a children's classic published in 1952. 

Author : Elwyn Brooks White ( The author of Stuart Little) 

Illustrator: Garth Willams

Publisher : Puffin, Penguin Group 

Age recommendation: 6 to 12 years (publishers recco - 9-12 years)

Goodreads rating: 4.19 /5 

The book came to us as a gift from the highly controversial book chain gifting system. Anyway! The cover photo of a little girl with lots of animals made my little girl pick the book up immediately. A chapter book with 22 chapters made the little reader carry it everywhere with her - to the car- to relatives place- to grandmothers house - to ..... And book got MISPLACED in between chapters. 

When the book could not be placed, we picked up a copy from the library. 

A beautiful tale of friendship between humans and animals ; animals and insects; about 'where there is a will, there is a way' and also about ' जाको राखे साईं, मार सकें ना कोई' ! A tale that talks about weaklings and having faith in them, about having faith in ur children and their special powers. 

Wilbur the Pig, Fern the Little girl, and the most heroic - Charlotte the spider and their magical story is a must read for Kids AND THE PARENTS. I insist - must read for the parents. I would also like to mention that it's not a book that you catch upto very fast. It's slow but with a lot of depth. 

This book has been adapted into picture books for younger children, movie, plays etc. And all kind of versions are available online. 

The American author E.B White won 1953 Newbery Medal honor for this first children's book of his. His second book 'Stuart Little' also recieved a lukewarm welcome but both these books are highly acclaimed in the literary world.