The crux of the story is that the sun is up in the sky and why is Amma still sleeping?From one stand-point, this is a very small, simple story that tries to capture a very small slice of time-frame and space. But if you read it again after a while, some hazy images start emerging in your mind.
Picture books, as a genre, are helpful in the early stages of reading. True to its genre, the book, I Love Grey, with its full page and sometimes double-spread illustrations and short sentences, gives ample space for imagination and reading practice. The text is simple, with some repetition—the phrase, ‘I love’—appears on each page, qualifying it further for a beginner’s reading book.
Duster is about a dog who is not really a dog. Or is he a dog but no one believes so? Duster likes things that a cat likes and he dislikes things that a dog is supposed to like. His human is disappointed in him for not behaving like a dog.
In the first read, The Giggling Girl felt like a simple story with 6-year-old Gargi giggling through various happenings around her, through the seasons, through the year. Over a day or two, the story stayed and kept gnawing at me. I wondered if these giggles could or should be taken so innocently. I decided to take the story to a group of children who were in the age of 7 to 12 years old and see their response.
Every year, as I see the big black ants in my kitchen and garden, it is a signal that it is going to rain. I feel happy about the heralding monsoon. I enjoy watching them walking silently one behind the other gathering food or dragging a dead insect from one place to another. At the same time, I shudder at the thought of scores of them gathering on my kitchen platform.
The title of the book is interesting in the sense that it gives you a chance to guess who is Number 5. Is it an animal? A bird? The illustration of little children on the cover page and their expressions tell us that they are looking for something. The trees around them suggest that they are in a forest.