Will Meenu Cry? is a bilingual book written both in English and Hindi (Kya Meenu Royegi) as a read aloud book. The author has very imaginatively created the story of a child who cries daily while her working mother takes her to school. She makes up some excuse or the other for not wanting to go to school and every day her mother has to cajole her and plead with her to get her into school. Between them, the mother and Meenu’s teacher make sure she attends school. By including the names of the weekdays in narrating the story for Meenu’s behaviour on each day, the author has included a learning process for the young ones. Meenu’s crying stops on the week-end since Saturday and Sunday are holidays. After a fortnight Meenu finds a reason to stop crying and I would leave the children to find out why that happens. The author leaves the children with a question, ‘Will Meenu cry on Monday?’ It would be interesting to know what the kids feel.
This book won the First prize in the category Social and Emotional Learning (3-5years) in the Competition for Writers of Children’s Books organized by CBT.
Ajanta Guhathakurta has imaginatively portrayed the story’s theme through her illustrations.
November 2023, volume 47, No 11