On Moppet's Bookshelf - 1

On account of owning two parents who lose all sense of proportion when in the vicinity of a bookstore, Moppet's book collection has been expanding prodigiously. We've been buying her a wide variety of books, and she seems to be quite happy to try them all out.

Like the music charts, her favourites move up and down from week to week. Some books that have had a fair amount of staying power in the charts so far are:

Look! There's Elmer
This is a really cool book, with peepholes on each page through which you can see a multi-coloured patch that might be Elmer. When you turn the page, you find that it's not him, but a parasol, a ball, a tent, etc. Moppet has great fun poking her finger through the peepholes and finding what's on the other side. We've even got a silly dance we do when we get to the last page and finally find Elmer. "We found Elmer, we found Elmer," we chant, waving our arms and wiggling our bums. The only problem is that this is not a board book, so the peepholes are getting a little ragged, what with all the excited little fingers poking through them so often. If this book stays in the charts, we may need to get another copy.

The Eye Book
Another classic Dr Seuss (writing as Theo LeSieg, since it's been illustrated by Joe Mathieu). With this one, I think it's the illustrations rather than the text that have caught her fancy. There's not much to the text, but she really enjoys pointing out the huge liquid eyes of the little protagonist (and nose and mouth while she's at it) and also naming all the things he sees.

The other Seuss book that remains a firm favourite is The Shape of Me and Other Stuff that I've mentioned before. This one has been read so much that it has literally disintegrated. Emergency surgery involving glue and weights has given it a fresh lease of life, but the strain is clearly showing.

Barney's Colour Train
I picked this up on our India trip for just 50 rupees (one more reason to miss home - you don't get inexpensive children's books here) and Moppet took to it immediately although she hadn't even seen Barney at the time. The text is in rather clunky rhyme and is not easy to read aloud, but the concept is nice. Each compartment of Barney's colour train is a different colour with matching and unusual cargo. We don't read this book as much as go through every page pointing out the various things of colour on it.

There are lots more books I could mention (I'm hard to shut up on the subject of books) but shamelessly stealing Kodi's Mom's wonderful idea, I'm making On Moppet's Bookshelf a series that I will update as and when we have new entries in our charts (or when I am out of ideas for a new post!)

Apart from Kodi's list, do also check out Chip's list of his favourite books. For more great reviews on children's books for all ages, hop on over to Saffron Tree.

Tagged: Indian Writing

I am not a picky reader. A consequence of this locust style devouring of any book that comes my way, is that few books make a deep enough impact for me to remember them much after I've read them.

That's not to say that there aren't any, of course. And while by my own standards I don't think I've read much Indian writing, there are still several memorable books and writers that I would like to list for this tag from Kiran.

I was introduced to Indian writing through the short story collections of Ruskin Bond and R K Narayan. As a young reader, I took their stories at face value, not looking for any deeper meanings or hidden philosophy. I love the simple style and engaging characters that are typical of both these writers.

My only encounter with poetry that was not dictated by school or college curriculum, was Tagore's Gitanjali. There was an old book I found that had a collection of Nobel Prize winning literature, and though I know I read it all, I can only remember Gitanjali and funnily enough, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. I do not know what became of that book, a fact which I regret deeply, since it was certainly an odd collection to have paired such dramatically different works, and I would've liked to read it again to remember what else it contained.

Then there is The Circle of Reason by Amitav Ghosh. This was the first of his books that I read and also the one that I remember most clearly. Which is strange, since I read it over 10 years ago, while I read The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide more recently. Yet it is the adventures of bumpy-headed Alu and his pursuer Das that remain vividly etched in my memory.

I love absolutely everything by Rohinton Mistry. His characters - eccentric, but not outrageously so - are real and likeable. His writing is simple and straightforward and he draws you into his world with deceptive ease. No gimmicks, no fancy prose, no showing off. My kind of man. My kind of book.

A writer who does come across as flashy to me is Arundhati Roy. I thought she tried too hard to create 'picturesque' prose. But for all that, I did enjoy The God of Small Things. Maybe because the place and people she describes were so familiar to me, it was almost like reading a book about family. It was fascinating.

My Own Country: A doctor's story is another book that touched my heart. It is an autobiographical account by Abraham Verghese about dealing with AIDS in a rural community at a time when very little was known about the disease.

I really enjoy reading plays, but there aren't very many Indian playwrights who write in English. Manjula Padmanabhan's Harvest had me riveted. Set in the future - a future that appears horrifyingly possible - it is a wonderful example of the best sort of Sci-Fi literature.

Currently waiting on my bookshelf are Q & A by Vikas Swarup, Three Novels by Amit Chaudhuri, and The Simoqin Prophecies by Samit Basu. The last book was bought out of sheer curiosity because it was the first Indian SF/Fantasy book that I had come across, a genre that I am rather partial to.

Reading through everyone else's lists has given me a large number of titles that I will need to get Moppet's Papa to pick up for me the next time he's in India. I had better send him with a big suitcase!

Passing on the tag to Sue, Suki, Squiggles Mom, Mystic Margarita, and Minka.

The Death of a Gingerbread Man

I am happy to report that the reign of The Gingerbread Man is over.

Just in time, too. After weeks of reading - "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" - over and over and OVER again, I had started dreaming of having to chase a giant gingerbread man.

In my dream (or is it nightmare?), I'm huffing and puffing on some sort of a treadmill, and this huge gingerbread man, with his beady button eyes and a mocking painted-on smile is just out of my reach. It is apparently very important that I catch him, but of course, I never do. And throughout the dream, an irritatingly high pitched voice (surely I don't sound like that?!) keeps saying, "Run, run as fast as you can.."

Um, anybody care to try a Freudian analysis of that? :-)

But wait, don't break out the strait jackets yet - Moppet has finally transferred her affections to two new titles, which are thankfully far more (re)readable than the GB Man.

The top book of the moment is Dr Seuss's The Shape of Me and Other Stuff - it's fun to read, and the illustrations, done in silhouette, are eye-catching. It has so many fun and weird shapes that she enjoys pointing out - including a 'Blogg' which, by the way, is nothing like you would imagine.

The other book that she enjoys is Just Like My Dad, by David Melling - a cute and simple story about a lion cub and his goofy yet lovable Dad. It's short, funny, and the pictures are delightful. My favourite line in the book is spoken by the lion cub: "And when I lie around being lazy, my mum says, 'You're just like your dad!'"

I figure if I read it often enough, either Moppet will get the message and be a little more lazy, or her dad will and be a little less lazy. Either will work just fine for me! :-)

But should neither miracle come to pass, I will still be happy - at least I don't need to chase that giant gingerbread man anymore.

My little bibliophile

We are a family of book lovers.

After 10 years abroad, when my family returned to India in the late 80's we brought back nothing but a PC and several boxes of books, much to the amusement of our extended family.

The little flat I grew up in had books everywhere, and I would read anything I could lay my hands on - age appropriate or not. So along with Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse, I would read Tennessee Williams and George Orwell.

Novels, short stories, plays. Humour, crime, biographies, social commentaries. Old classics and modern tales. I wasn't picky, I read them all.

I read with an obsessive intensity that normal teenagers applied to the pursuit of their latest crush. My mom often used to say that I wouldn't hear a bomb going off near me if I was reading. And while there has never been occasion to test that statement (thank goodness!), I think she might have been right.

Moppet's Papa and I are polar opposites in practically every way. We would've been the poster couple for the phrase 'opposites attract' but for the one thing we have in common - our love of books. As a young DINK couple with a modest lifestyle, we were always puzzled at the sorry state of our bank accounts at the end of the month until we realised how much we were spending on books. Of course, the realisation merely put an end to the mystery of the vanishing money, not the spending itself!

So it is our fond hope that Moppet will grow up to love reading too. She showed some promise of being an early reader at around 4 months, as you can see in this picture here. And then of course, she decided it was something to eat, and the moment was lost :-)

Since then, she hasn't been particularly interested in books other than to chew on, tear, bang on the floor, or sit on.

But we have persevered. For the last 3 months now she has been taking some interest and will sit with me for 10-15 minutes while I read to her.

And then last week, I discovered that she actually has a favourite book. It is...(drum roll, please)...The Gingerbread Man! She can identify this book from among the stack of about 10 odd books that sit on a little table within her reach. If I ask her to bring me a book to read, she will methodically go through the stack, dragging each book onto the floor, until she finds the one she wants - and it is ALWAYS The Gingerbread Man. And that's not all. We always have to read it twice, sometimes more.

To say I am delighted is to flirt recklessly with understatement. I only hope that this is not a passing phase, and that she will continue to explore and enjoy the wonderful world of books.

Because, to quote Emily Dickinson,
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away.