India

Materials from India

It’s Time For Holi!

Holi is a popular Indian festival that takes place at the end of the winter season. The celebration of Holi brings people closer together. During Holi, people welcome spring by throwing colored water or powder on one another. This story begins during the winter season, with a boy who is anxiously waiting for spring and the celebration of Holi to begin. When Holi day finally arrives, he can’t wait to celebrate. He decides to use his colored powders– before his family and friends arrive! As he explores the different colored powders, he starts to relate the colors to what he sees happening in nature during springtime. Through his own exploration, he learns more about the significance of this colorful festival.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 3

The House That Sonabai Built

As a young woman, Sonabai Rajawar finds herself alone, day after day for almost fifteen year. No family, no friends… And then one day she ‘makes’ her way out of oppressive loneliness into a world of creativity, beauty and joy. This sensitive telling of Sonabai’s story follows her transformative artistic journey from the tactile experience of her first creations in clay, innovative experiments with colours and light, and unfettered play with pattern and design to being embraced by the art world.

Monkey Wars

When rhesus monkeys are brutally massacred on the dusty streets of Kolkata by a troop of power-hungry langur monkeys, Mico, a privileged langur, becomes entangled in the secrets at the heart of his troop’s leadership and is shocked at what he discovers. He feels compelled to help the few surviving rhesus, especially Papina, a young female he befriends, even though doing so goes against everything he’s been taught. As more blood is spilled, Mico realizes that choosing between right and wrong won’t be easy.

Ticket To India

When twelve-year-old Maya and big sister Zara set off on their own from Delhi to their grandmother’s home of Aminpur, a small town in Northern India, they become separated and Maya decides to continue their quest to find a chest of family treasures that their grandmother’s family left behind when they fled from India to Pakistan during the Great Partition.

The Broken Tusk: Stories Of The Hindu God Ganesha

This collection of Hindu folktales for middle readers features stories about the god, Ganesha, who is easily recognized because of his elephant head. Krishnaswami introduces the stories by recalling her own introduction to Ganesha and goes on to offer a mythological context for the tales. Included among the tales are Ganesha’s Head, The Broken Tusk, and ‘Why Ganesha Never Married.

Blue Jasmine

When twelve-year-old Seema moves to Iowa City with her parents and younger sister, she leaves friends and family behind in her native India but gradually begins to feel at home in her new country.

Letters From A Father To His Daughter

Jawaharlal NehruWhen Indira Gandhi Was A Little Girl Of Ten, She Spent The Summer In Mussoorie, While Her Father, Jawaharlal Nehru, Was Busy Working In Allahabad. Over The Summer, Nehru Wrote Her A Series Of Letters In Which He Told Her The Story Of How And When The Earth Was Made, How Human And Animal Life Began, And How Civilizations And Societies Evolved All Over The World.Written In 1928, These Letters Remain Fresh And Vibrant, And Capture Nehru’S Love For People And For Nature, Whose Story Was For Him `More Interesting Than Any Other Story Or Novel That You May Have Read’.

Work

This series of bilingual books encourages children to ‘imagine words’ and build vocabulary with the aid of pictures in a storytelling setting. By providing words in two language simultaneously, the books create a platform for children to build their own narratives. This helps them use words creatively, and remember them.