The Heart and the Bottle

Author: Oliver Jeffers
Ages: 6+ years ( but is known to have touched more adults!)

Once there was a little girl like any other, whose head was filled with all the wonder in the world...

Thus begins this beautiful story of a little girl who locked her heart away when she encounters the loss of her beloved father figure. Whether it is Dad, Granddad or a close relative is up to the reader to imagine, but the little girl adores him and looks up to him a lot. But one day she finds an empty chair, Pa gone missing.

The loss hurts her very much and so, unable to come to terms with grief, she locks away her heart in a bottle hung on her neck and thus postpones tackling her sadness. But as time goes by, the weight of the bottle bears down on her. Although she imagines that now her heart is locked inside, it is safe from any more hurtful feelings, the awkward weight of the bottle nags her.

One day, a curious little girlie comes running to her with a question about the world. Had she been like before, she would have known the answer, but now that her heart is in the bottle, she is clueless. That is when she decides to get her heart out. But try as she might, she simply does not succeed in breaking the bottle.

Finally, it is the little girlie with the curious mind who succeeds to get it out of the bottle and instantly the big girl realises how much she has actually missed all along! She starts to follow her heart again and explores the wonders of the world, just like her Pa.

This story could have been anybody's. The loss could have been a loved one, love, a dream, a job, temper, just anything. What do we do when faced with the loss? The immediate need to retreat in a shell of pity and sadness is almost always the easiest way out. It is certainly soothing, and the fear of getting hurt if we break out feels very real and threatening. For that moment at least. But it is not the solution. And the more we linger inside, the harder it becomes to break out of it.

There is life outside of it, if we only care to open up. Perhaps it needs a little help from someone. A nudge, a chiding, long talks, a healing, a hug, whatever it takes. But when we do break out, we will see that there is always something else to live for, to love, to laugh about and to share with. And if we could only see that we can never protect the heart from hurt in this world, not even if we bottle it up, maybe we would try to give up all our inner fights and start feeling peace and happiness in everything that comes our way.

Oliver Jeffers has again created magic with his simple drawings, simple text and a great uplifting storyline. We had the lovely opportunity of meeting him in a book signing and for once in all my life, I got this book signed for myself, with my name ( and a cute bottle doodle that he drew underneath!). And he is as sweet as his books :o)

Here is a Youtube version.

And here is a nice little video about Oliver Jeffers.

Why Does Ear Wax taste so gross... and more top trivia!

Author : Mitchell Symons
Ages: 6+

About 6 years back, my elder son came inside the kitchen asking me for a bottle quarter filled with water. He then asked for a spoonful of all the spices in the kitchen, some coriander, yogurt, flour, rice, lentils, oil, my perfume, baby shampoo, shaving foam, crushed ginger and finally some acrylic paint. He then disappeared for about an hour, then came back and asked me to save his "special magic potion" in the kitchen window sill, and I obliged. Every time I glanced at it, mum instinct would kick me with a vengeance, but I was too busy to give it a thought. Eventually after 4 or 5 days, the kicks became too much to bear and I summoned my boy and asked him what was so special about the potion. My instinct had been spot on, he could find "no cat urine to go into the potion", so he wee-d into it and that I should "never worry, the magic would still work fine"! :oO!!

Some things never change with time. Some boys never change at all!

Recently, I discovered there is such a genre of books called "grossology".  Very aptly named, because these books can't quote more grosser facts! Like the one suggested in the title of this book...  Why does ear wax taste so gross.

While I was wondering who in the world would ever want to taste THAT, I overheard my boys ( standing in front of this book in the library) comparing the intricate effects that this thing and a very particular other thing had on their taste buds :o{ ...
and went gagging away :oC ...
only to find the book right beside their bedside table that night :o\.

I agree. My culinary delights are anything but delightful, but I had never ever ever ever expected my boys to resort to eating such appalling stuff! I should really try to cook more interesting things to eat. Or probably make my usual cooking look gross enough to interest them :o)

And just when I was wondering if this was a faulty gene-of-this-generation running in my family, I stumbled upon this mumsnet discussion about house rules. One of the mum had quoted " don't sit on your sibling and fart", and I realized I am not the lone mum with DSs obsessed and extremely "inquisitive and creative" with their output. :o)

Anyway, coming down to the book: this is not really the book of general knowledge or the quiz book that would get you prizes, but it is certainly something the kids will enjoy reading again and again. Some facts in the book aren't quite the useful stuff  - knowing that a rat can swim 72 hours non-stop isn't going to get you a degree. But it is a bit of info nevertheless, and little curious brains ( of boys, in particular) seem to relish such trivia. It also has loads of facts about body functions(!), inventions, famous people, films, history, geography. languages and just about anything.

I liked reading the bits about what kids wrote in English, history, science exams. Totally funny. Like this one:  "John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met." LOL! And " She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs" !!

And quite soon it dawned on me that I had read the book back-to-back without even realizing it :o)

I still decided against practically experimenting on the title, though!

Horrid Henry

Author: Francesca Simon
Illustrator: Tony Ross
Ages: 5+

Caution: Some parents may find Horrid Henry books too horrid for their children, with bad manners and horrid words.

I love Dennis the Menace. I simply adore Tom Sawyer. I have to admit, I do really enjoy naughty children stories. There is something extremely appealing and cute about Krishna after he has nicked all the butter. If it weren't for the naughty kids, you would never have those awesome stories to tell their wife and kids later on! (did I get my double negative right?!?).

My elder son's naughty tales run for pages together - locking neighbours inside their house, rubbing out neighbours' carefully drawn kolams, pressing the elevator buttons from the top floor just when people are about to exit the lift in lower floors, thereby making them travel all the way up (and down and up again * 4 at least). But the little one is more of a conformist ( we call him the Rules Ramanujam of our house!). Still, his conformist ideas would sometimes include flushing brand new mobiles down the toilet, posting bread and Chapatis in the DVD player, pulling out springs from all pens and hiding them in the freezer, washing machine, Mum's boots and other such "safe" places..

Also these days it is a constant fight to act as the "good boy" in front of mum and more important, framing the other one as being wicked. And when I wonder if I am making some mistake in bringing them up, I am reminded of all my fights with my sister and all my cousins and realize it is just an enticing part of growing up, a rite of passage into and out of teens.

Which is why Horrid Henry is such a huge success. I personally haven't read even one, I find them a bit too silly ( Alas, senility is eating into me already!). But I have a major soft spot for them, because it was the first ever book that was independently read by my elder son when he was 5. And since then, he has never stopped reading! He has got every single one of the books, many signed by Francesca Simon, the author. Even now, I find him delving into one of these and it is a collection he proudly displays in his room!

Francesca Simon has also had the books translated into many languages, and is one of the most read Children's authors. She has also won awards and accolades for Horrid Henry books. Horrid Henry books always figure on the libraries' Top 10 lists of borrowed books.

The books are very concise reads, with 4 crisp episodes in every book, short enough to keep the newly independent reader engaged and wanting more. The settings are the ones that kids immediately associate themselves with - classroom, fair, school trips, plays, lunch breaks, dinnertime with siblings, sleepovers, making secret clubs and everything else equally childish. And are almost always about the fights and chaos and the usual telling off that ensues.

The characters have alliterative names ( Moody Margaret, Sour Susan, Perfect Peter etc) and loathsome traits! Horrid Henry is the bad big brother and Perfect Peter is the annoyingly perfect and smug younger brother. You can pretty much guess the stories from this. Amidst all the chaos and name calling, there is a steady flow of nice words for kids to pick up (some words I picked up from Horrid Henry and the Zombie Vampire - scuttling, lisping, puny, lurched, craning, unearthly). I wouldn't expect a 5 year old to know these words and when the kids keep reading the book again and again, they end up registering the words as well along with their meaning.

Perhaps it is the brat in every child and hence a vicarious satisfaction of being a rebel for a while that makes them want more of Horrid Henry, as they never seem to tire of Henry's bad traits. And I have seen that it is the anti-hero Henry that kids adore, not the ever-so-perfect Peter! Even if Henry uses all the dirty tricks in the book to bully his younger brother and ends up paying for it, the children still side Henry.

The books have been made into TV Serials and you can find loads of episodes on Youtube.  The schools even use the books to discuss PSHE ( Personal, Social, Health Education) topics and find it rather easy to refer back to these characters and discuss good and unacceptable behaviour and the aftermath. It is almost like the lessons in Mahabharatha, on how NOT to be!

The complete list of books released so far can be found here.

Horrid Henry.  Horribly Hilarious!

Snow Tales

Author: Michael Morpurgo  Illustrated by Michael Foreman
Ages: 5+

Michael Morpurgo's books are wonderful entertainers. So much so, that Spielberg created a classic movie adapting Morpurgo's "The War Horse". Snow tales is no exception.

This book has two stories both involving creatures of the Arctic - the Polar Bear and an Albatross family. The settings for the story spring right out of the book with Michael Foreman's cool illustrations in arctic hues and you can almost hear the soothing voice of Sir David Attenborough narrating about life in the north pole in the background, like his episodes in Natural History channel.

The stories themselves are very warm and engaging. While the Polar bear dreams the impossible during hibernation, the Albatross family face a few challenges in their brave fight for survival in the frozen north.

Snow tales... a melting composition.