The Veena Player

Tulika publications "The Veena Player" written by Anjali Raghbeer, illustration by Soumya menon. Enjoyed reading the book. Good story to share it with your little one, will introduce a nice story and some of Ravi verma's paintings to young readers.

Synopsis given by tulika books about the book:

A damaged painting is like a body without a soul, Aunty Prima tells Valsa, when they set about restoring an old painting by Ravi Varma. As they remove the layers of dust, Valsa hears a delicate cough. Does it come from the painting?
      
 The Veena Player is about a charming friendship between young Valsa and the veena player, which weaves in nuances of Ravi Varma's art style, and pays tribute to his skill in painting lifelike portraits.

Nice read!.

Puppet Show

We did our very own puppet show at home for"Rainbow fish" by "Marcus Pfisher". The kids cooperated well ahem ahem, ok there were only 2 kids mine and his friend. So Rainbow fish is the story of this beautiful fish in the sea who has beautiful shining scales and his proud of  his possession. One little blue fish will ask for one of its scale, but rainbow fish will scold and turn away as he/she doesnt want to share its priced possession. All other fishes on seeing this will decide not to do anything with this fish. This will make the rainbow fish lonely and unhappy it will go to a starfish and the starfish will direct the rainbow fish to an octopus. Octopus will ask the rainbow fish to share its scales. When the blue fish as it is little has no inhibition or ego asks for a scale again, rainbow fish will try it for the first time, sharing its scale. And the happiness it felt and how he got lots of friends is the story.

We cut 2 sets of colorful fishes, little blue fish, octopus, starfish and the hero Rainbow fish, and I sticked it in  icecream sticks. I made Rainbow fish with beautiful scales by sticking gilttering paper which we received as gift rapper and our happy birthday paper died so I decided to reuse it, so I used it for octopus and rainbow fish and made one batch of colorful fishes without shining scales and another with one shining scales. So now the prop is ready. I tied my blue and white dupatta as water between two chairs as I dont have time to make the proper set. I wanted to make corals, sea plants, bubbles cut out from papers but in just one hour we could do only this. As we didnt have time to practice our lines, I narrated the story and kids did excellent job by sitting behind the sea waves and enacting it nicely with props, a day well spent!!

Hug

Name  : Hug
Author : Jez Alborough
Right for 0-3yrs age

This book was a big hit with my kid when he was 3yrs old, he got it as a return gift. Then I saw few available in goodwill for a dollar! that too a big board book. Bobo lost his way in the jungle, and he wanted to find his mommy. Beauty of this book is the whole book has only words Hug, mommy, bobo!! And kids can narrate the story in their own words...

When I read the story to his friends in a potluck all the kids were sitting tight in one place which is a rare event :). Bobo meets all kinds of animals in the jungle, chameleon, snake, elephant, giraffe, lion and it was all illustrated well. So its a nice way to introduce animals to the kids. One of the good books and I will never forget, it made my kid to come up with different versions of the story :).

Dont miss it if you have a toddler.

Lorax

Name  : Lorax
Author : Dr seuss

One of my (our) favorite author Dr. Seuss, together we enjoyed a whole lot of books. Of which Lorax is his favorite. We got to know about this book from a friends friend who gifted the book to my friends daughter ;). And she explained what is the book about, and we decided to get our hands on the book. This explains how greed takes over the humanitarian aspect. Always Dr seuss characters were named in a funny way, so kids giggle and laugh on hearing the name.

Onceler, Lorax. truffula trees, thneed are some of the names you could come across and more in the line. Onceler on seeing the trees decided to use the thneed to make shirt, scarf and lot of other things, so he started cutting down the trees with the help of his family and relatives, and in no time the place will become deserted, and the factory leftovers will pollute the place like anything. "Unless" someone took initiative to change the whole scenario by planting more trees there is no chance for the place. Its a beautiful story but how much kids will understand is what i thought. But I was wrong, it does made an impact. 

Book is available in
- Flipkart.com
- Passarobooks which listed as preowned imported bookstore, might be another choice to check.

Little yash is happy!

Name of the book: Little Yash is happy right now
Author: Nishita Chaitanya
website: www.chinmayapublications.org
Lift the flap and pop up book

Not all the books we both enjoy reading together. Some books I wouldnt even understand why he didnt like, and why he like it :). But this is one book I loved and he too enjoyed immensely. We got the book from Chimaya mission pune. How little yash learns to be happy. Little yash will be in the pool and will think, "I will be happy if I know how to swim", frog will jump and say, you can be happy when you are learning and you can be happy when you know" sameway what happens when he is in school, playground and at home and how little yash choose to be happy was illustrated with beautiful popups.

Rikki tikki tavi

Name of the book: Rikki Tikki Tavi moves on
Author:  Originally by Rudyard Kipling
Easy reader classic adapted by: Diane Namm
Illustration: Jim Madsen
No of pages: 32
 
We read Rikki Tikki Tavi. I found this book in Justbooks. But it is a easy reader classics retold for young readers. So I missed the illustration by caldecott award winner Jerry pinkney and original writing by Rudyard Kipling. But Rishi enjoyed the book.

It was about a curious mongoose Rikki Tikki Tavi, and how he turns the house topsy turvy and finally accepted by the family. Though in the real classic cobra is supposed to be scary, in this easy reader there was just a race and the cobra is not at all scary to my little one. When I asked Rishi what did he like about the book he said, he liked that racing and the way they both (mongoose and teddy) peeped out of the hole. So overall it was fun to introduce Rikki Tikki Tavi to him, who is longing to have a pet. I am sure he will ask me to get a pet mongoose soon :)

These two links are interesting, one is the story another is a movie on the same:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mongoose/rtt.html