An orchid that grows underground, wasps that come to attack pests on a plant in response to a chemical signal sent by the plant, glue from the juice of flowers, a poisonous seed used to weigh precious metals…there’s plenty of fascinating stuff happening in the plant world. Amreen Toor has a captivating lineup of facts in 501 Facts Factory. The book, all 170 pages of it, is packed with interesting information…
They say never judge a book by its cover. Wise words but the title on the cover of a book definitely gives the reader a good reason to give it a second look…or not! And this title grabs attention immediately! The strength of this book is the choice of the topic. It is extremely relevant for people spanning a wide age group. It speaks of microbes coexisting with us, a fact that is certainly not new but it describes the width and depth of our interaction with microbes which is not so well known to most people, barring the experts…
Maps are very important tools of education. What is a map?The old idea of maps focuses on its utility, to locate places and determine directions. Political history has widened this core utility to include in it a powerful socializing devise, to create territorial nation states in the young minds. Education submits to the mysterious power of the boundaries that maps display. Borders tend to make the earth less important than the inhabitants of each society and nation. Nature’s crisis and the state of tension between human relations, and nature and human relation with other humans become unreceptive to education, including the best kind of education…
Through the two Vikram-Aditya stories, Deepak Dalal showed me a glimpse of the beauty of Snow Leopards of the Himalayas and the coral reefs near south Indian Islands. Vikram and Aditya are two adolescent friends, who find themselves in adventures dealing with men involved in illegal work during their trips away from their school in the Nilgiris. The travel adventure does more than just telling suspenseful tales. Though the books are committed to a nail-biting plot to hand over the criminal mastermind and bring them to justice, in doing so the author makes use of descriptions of the locations that takes the reader through the geography of the places…
The Antarctic Mission is the 13th book in the series Aditi Adventures by the well known feminist, fabulist and writer Suniti Namjoshi. Aditi is a young girl (inspired by Namjoshi’s niece—her namesake) who sets out on the most amazing adventures across the world along with her three companions: a monkey, an ant, an elephant named Beautiful and sundry dragons. Originally published as a twelve book series dealing with diverse themes, the stories blend adventure and fantasy, the tech savvy world of today and the magical…
We live in a world that is messy and complicated. Technology has escalated it. Are children untouched by it? Hardly. Their sense of good and bad, right and wrong are no longer simple. Ask a child if good begets good, and in all probability you will hear a ‘no’! How Earth Got its Beauty by Sudha Murty for children is a story that is from another time—innocent and uncomplicated…