A little word about Mythology

Whoa! In the first place, I did not expect so many people to be revisiting my blog a lot. While I am honoured and very touched, I really have to admit that this has added a responsibility on my shoulders. I actually started the blog as a simple pastime of writing about books me or my children loved reading. But when my dear friend went ahead and ordered a particular set of books for her little one, it got me thinking very deep indeed. And ONLY because it happened to be Mythology stories.

I remember my first history lesson in Year 1, when I was six. It was the story of Rama. And the last question in that lesson was " Who killed Ravana? with a simple answer "Rama killed Ravana". It did not affect me one bit learning it. I took it for granted, I bet my mother never thought about me learning about killings, because it is one of the many things forming the basis of Hinduism ( taught in a Christian school). Not the killing, but the honesty and righteousness and the victory of good over evil.

I remember seeing Vikram aur Vetal, Ramayana and Mahabharatha in TV, all having their share of vanquishing scenes and fights, loads of them. It never affected me or at least, most of our generation. It was simply taken for granted, never analysed or dissected. You walk into a temple, you see gory demons guarding the entrance, you see Gods and Goddesses with their armour and in most cases, standing over the vanquished, heads in hand and skulls adorning the neck. Good destroying Bad. Good wins, goodness is established by God, so God is the embodiment of Good. If anything, back then, I only had a feeling of having a safety net around because God can do away with evil and so protect me from anything and everything.

Even the movies had their fair share of gore, every single one of them. You can't watch a Rajini movie without it. You can't watch a Kamal movie without it, and I do remember watching them since time immemorial, again. I used to hate the fights, but then that was it. Almost all of those movies were U certified. Nobody really questioned.

But I remember, when I was telling the story of Krishna to my elder son, he promptly asked me why Kamsa harmed children. I told him it was because he was evil, and that's why Krishna destroyed him. Then he asked me how could Krishna destroy someone and be called God, when God was supposed to love everyone. And again continued with a " Anyway, if God is God, why should he ever create evil and let evil play around with good, and then destroy evil. If God has created both, then it sounds like he does not have a heart, it looks like he has made video games with all people in the world".

I stopped everything I was doing to explain to him that mum did not have an answer to that. Mum's knowledge was limited, and that it is something he would have to find out for himself, by constant questioning, by reading the religious books later in life. And I told him that in a way it was like this - Mum loves the children. Mum wants the best for her children. Sometimes the children, though they only come from mum and dad, who are good, try misbehaving. They break the trust, they do silly things, they hurt the feelings of mum and dad. Mum and Dad may then ground them, may cut off their privileges, but that doesn't mean they hat the children. They only love them more every day, but want a good life for the children, so they have to teach some lessons the hard way sometimes.

I tried telling him that these demons, fight with evil are all similes and metaphors. God's fight with them is like your inner struggle when you want to sneak an extra chocolate, but finally get over the feeling and choose not to do it. Demons depict fear, anger, hatred, jealousy. All things you always fight against in your mind. You have to destroy them to stay good, without harming fellow beings. That is what all these Mythical stories are trying to teach us. He did take to the simile-metaphor thing well then, he had just learnt them in school and it helped him see the point.

But he still wasn't satisfied. I wasn't either. We still discuss this a lot. And the older he is growing, the more he is learning about the human atrocities, the more he is questioning the existence of the Supreme Power. Auschwitz disgusted him, Hiroshima, Anne Frank's story and Jallianwala Bagh massacre moved him to tears and he came to me saying " Perhaps it is just as well God kills all these bad people. Is it wrong to think so?". I was speechless. I had no answer, yet again. But I knew he has been exposed to the real world. The hatred and cruelty and atrocities that we live with today.

Why I am saying this is that my post on Little Monk's series spurred a lot of discussions about gore in stories. I have read two of these stories and yes, there are mentions of killings, I don't think you could ever tell a mythology story without them at all, but I never considered them as shocking or disturbing. Maybe because my elder son was 8+ when he read these books ( I do remember mentioning 8+ for this series) and I know he is mature enough to not isolate them as scary or gory incidents and go with the flow of the story.

There might be no fairy tale softness in our mythology stories, but then there is no temple without all the gory similies and metaphors either! The motto of our school was "Fear the Lord and  get Wisdom". I was right against that even then, why FEAR something that is an embodiment of LOVE! But alas, we have all grown up pickled in these thoughts, we all carry it wherever we go. Religion, history and today's news all have killings and quite frankly, it is bound to exist as long as life exists.

All I would say is that if your child is ready enough to watch Anniyan or Enthiran or Karnan or even The Ten Commandments and Benhur ( which we watched as children, arranged by the school!), then your child is ready to read Little Monk's series. If not, maybe you would like to hold on a bit longer! Parents know their children best. While all of my reviews keep in mind the reading age of children, every child is unique and I would leave it to the parent to decide.

However, I do stick to my post, they are nice books with above average level of English efficiency and vocabulary, and my son has enjoyed reading them a lot. From now on, I will certainly consider adding a parental guidance note with the author / ages section.

All the other books that I have so far written about are completely harmless and tame for even babies :o)

And while I am writing all of this, I just couldn't help thinking about the families in the middle-east whose children are right now living through all of the things that we are even scared to mention to our little ones in stories. My heart goes out to them, and only think " Why this bloodshed? Why children? Why at all?". But that is the truth. Not Goldilocks or Snow White. Not even a Spiderman or He-man or Rama. Only Demons.

I sincerely apologize if I have misled anyone with my reviews. I do hope you would continue to enjoy the books as much as we have enjoyed, and yes, I do realize we could have difference of opinions... I respect that a lot, and invite as many discussions and experiences that could make me amend my views with a better understanding.

Thank you all for all of your support without which I would have long resorted to my self-criticism and laziness and stopped blogging!
 

Glenn Murphy and the Science Museum series

Author: Glenn Murphy
Ages: 8+

Let's admit it. There is just NO WAY you can ever succeed in curbing the kids' enchantment with the B-word and all its by products thereof. If you haven't guessed it, I am referring to "the bottom" and the various other B words (and A!) associated with it. It is just every family's safely guarded secret, I guess - these B-word substitutes in multi various languages and associated jokes. Well you can go into denial, but the sparkle in your kids' eyes on the slightest mention of anything related to B would shout "Gotcha!" in your ears!! And the endless giggles that would follow would make you wish you'd morph into an ostrich and bury your head in earth. ( Of course they actually don't do that, you should know that by now, really. Only figuratively speaking...) Particularly if said event occurs in front of just the very people you to whom you were trying to show off your thorough-bred breed :o)

Glenn Murphy certainly understood this. And proved it right by writing his famous Science Museum series books with enough info about all these things.  And also every kind of output from the human body. I bet more boys read this than girls, this fascination has always been a boys' thing, I'd say. Nevertheless, these books are hilariously scientific and the kids simply giggle away without realizing they are learning!

Glenn Murphy is a British-born author residing in the US. He started writing the science museum series while working for the London Science Museum. He says most of the info in his books, which is in the form of questions and answers, have been doubts he had been having in his childhood. His books have since been nominated for various awards and is a winner with children of all ages.

The titles are very "inviting" for children - like "Why is Snot green" and " How loud can you burp" and "Stuff that scares your pants off". Very informative (!) - kidding, they really are and written in a style that manages to keep even the kids with short attention span heartily occupied.

These books have fuelled many "smart" family discussions and I love getting these books for my boys. Needless to say, Glenn Murphy is a mega hero for my little ones!

He has also written a slightly serious book about our carbon footprints and how kids can do little things to reduce the same. Printed on forest friendly paper, this book is bursting with lovely bits of info, most of which apply to adults as well. I found it a very engaging read as well. It also has a set of cards included, one of which is my favourite that reads - People need lights. Rooms don't. Switch off when you leave. This just about sums up the whole book!

Science Museum series. Rip-roaring read ;o)

Little Monk's Tales of Wisdom

Author: Various
Publisher: Wisdom Tree
Ages: 8+

When you want the kids to learn about morals and good values, there is no other thing better than our Mythology stories. Their profound, yet simple and easy to understand values are a very strong foundation for any child to develop on. I consider them a must-know for my children. And I have found that no matter how much children love other authors of the world and their work of fiction, they are deeply touched by our mythology and it gets them thinking really intensely.

For Tales of bravery, wisdom, wit and tales of Gods and Goddesses and famous lives, I generally look no further than Amar Chitra Katha. No Indian household should be devoid of one. I remember the days when we had subscriptions running for Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha when we were kids, and how me and my sister always tried to beat each other to snatch the copy from the postman! Our Dad would then get the copies bound into volumes, and many of our evening snacks were eaten over these bound volumes. Sadly though, these were also the books that people borrowed and never gave back and to this date, the loss has been  totally inconsolable! These books reminded me of my collection very much!

Little Monk's tales are a collection of books of beautiful titles - Hanuman, Buddha, Krishna, Lakshmi, Saraswati and many more. They have been very neatly written by famous Indian authors and tell the stories in a short and sweet yet complete way. The real nice thing about these books is the very clever camouflage of some good vocabulary into the story. These words are cleverly highlighted, and there is a glossary with all these tough words and their meanings, so it is a wonderful way of expanding the childrens' vocabulary in their formative years when they are able to absorb them easily. More so as it is associated with a nice story that they are bound to remember.

I got introduced to these books when my sweet sister ( I really have LOADS of them, all too sweet to be called cousins!) gifted "Little Monk's Hanuman" to my elder son. He instantly took to it and has been reading and re-reading it many times. So when he saw "Little Monk's Buddha" in the shop, he recognized the publication and the book made its way home!

The illustrations are bold and beautifully Indian and very nostalgic. These books are certainly worth a purchase and even if they are a bit tougher for the younger children to read by themselves, I would recommend mums to read them first and recite to the kids. You would surely have all their attention!

Little Monk's tales of wisdom.  Definitely a wise buy.

Tea Break - Mint

A perfect medicine for tummy aches, period pain, headaches and not to mention, a grumpy mood!

There is a saying in Tamil "Uppittavarai ullalavum ninai" ( one who gives salt to you, meaning one who feeds you, should be remembered till the day you die). The caretaker of the school we live in ( oh Yes, we do!) is the one who has gotten into our uppittavar list, by feeding salt. Not to us, but to our doorsteps and front path. He has been gritting our frozen steps every single day before we get up without us even asking. How sweet! He is the sole person who has saved the bones in our bodies when we dart out of the house every morning at a maddening speed and of course, we will always remember his unconditional act of kindness. I wish I could do such random acts of kindness as many times as I can.

Finally, looks like a thaw is on the way. Good news, because what starts off as pristine white snow ends up like vomit by day 3, and as a perfect replica of spit by day 6. By which time you really wish you could shout " Land Ahoy!" and get rid of the vestigial white stuff. In Edinburgh though, we had a worser problem when the thaw set in. It would resurrect the hibernating dog poos ( plural of poo as there wasn't ever just ONE, you know!) that were snowed in. Not a sight to behold, that one! But if you didn't behold, your shoe would hold! UGH.

In any case, another weekend and another major cooking exam - to cook healthy, different varieties that boys would love and not consider boring. This is not a territory that I love crossing, and I am always looking out for fresh ideas of others to piggy back on. And I have to tell you that my friend Roshni's Kitchen is just the place I always end up in! A lovely blog by a lovely girl with just the recipes that would help you out of Saturday and sunday blues and make your day. You should really check it out to believe it. I have tried many of her recipes with great success. And her blog is so beautifully maintained and bursting with goodness. You could perhaps subscribe to her "Arusuvai Kurippu" blog page in FB to keep abreast of all updates.

It is funny, I always want to say something, but always digress so much from what I intended to say. Which is certainly not what I meant to say now, but anyway. There was this nice Kids' Book Event happening in "The Works". It is a "Buy a book for £1.99 and get another for 1p" sale. I have to say the books are GORGEOUS! All famous authors and I even spotted "Owl Babies". Most of the £1.99 books are originally priced at £4.99 or above, so basically for £2, you would be buying about £10 worth of books! I mostly buy books second hand for personal use, but when I saw this, I had to snatch a couple! Also picked up a Michael Morpurgo boxed set of 8 books for a mega bargain. All set for the weekend now :o)

I usually pick my books from charity shops and used, good quality books from ebay most of the times. If I am buying as gifts, I usually do them here: Red House Books or The Book People.
The books are sold brand new, at 40% to even 90% reduction in price and these are great brands I really trust.

But I have noticed that books are mostly cheapest in India. I picked up loads of Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton books priced between 80 - 150. Mera Bharat Mahaan :o)








 

Tangramables

Author: Judi Martschinke
Illustrator: Janet McDonnell
Age:4+

If there is one possession that I can never bear to part with, it is my book collection. This hold good for my boys as well. The moment a Summer Fair table top sale or a charity sale turns up in school, I ask the boys if we could do one and with books that they've outgrown, but the answer would be a top-of-the-voice NO! And every time we go back to Chennai and Bangalore, I ask them if we could give some of the books to their younger cousins, and the answer would be a "only if they promise to give them back!". Then I have to sit, teach and make them see through the fact that people mean more to us than books and that it is a noble deed to share your things to people who mean a lot to you, it is how you show you love them.

Easier said than done. You have to be a believer first and a doer as well before you can preach, you see!

So if anybody has ever got a used book from me or my kids, know that you are being loved in abundance, so much that we were ready to part with our most precious possessions!

And the converse is very true as well. If someone gives us one of their much loved books, and that too without even hesitating once, they sky rocket in our TRP ratings. Right to the top :o). And stay there forever!

That is just what my lovely sis and her little boy from US did when they visited us - gave away the "Tangramables" book ever so readily, even though I could see that they loved it so much that it got to travel with them! And they have set a very beautiful example for my kids, as they always point out to me whenever they use the book.

This is a very versatile tangram activity book for ages about 4 - 8. It might appear a bit too easy to look at, but it needs quite a bit of logical reasoning for their age. As the puzzles start getting more and more complex, they involve loads of imagination and is a very good vent to the excessive energy and restlessness of little ones when they are indoors.

The book comes with 7 tangram pieces (a square, a parallelogram, 4 triangles) which the children would need to use ( either some or all of them) to solve the puzzles in the book. The initial ones are quite easy involving just geometrical shapes. The next set is more for the imagination. Like building familiar objects, animals etc with the tangram pieces. The final section is to create familiar geometric shapes using the pieces, and this is the trickiest bit!

This book has been used and reused so many times and I have see my younger boy growing in confidence in solving the puzzles. He also started appreciating the wooden tangram puzzle his dad got for him from India ( Landmark, I think) and now even tries to draw animals and objects from real life using the basic shapes and playing guessing games with his brother as to what is being drawn. For once, being snowed in is fun!

I guess this book is used as a learning resource across schools in the US. I have seen lots of tangram activity books in both UK and India. This book is on Amazon for £2.99 (used), but looks like it always gets sold out pretty fast! Being a US publication, the original books seem a bit too costly in ££s. Landmark ( or perhaps Odyssey) has loads of square wooden puzzles with many little colourful pieces and a book of shapes that could be made. Guarantees hours of concentration and a quiet house for mum. Well, for a while, at least!

Tangramables. Truly food for thought!

P.S: The day me and my boys readily give away all our books would be the day we have attained absolute Nirvana!

Funnybones

Author : Allan Ahlberg
Illustrator: Janet Ahlberg
Age: 3+

I have noticed that stories that strike a chord with our daily life experiences get to become a great hit with every member of the family. Funnybones is just that type of book. Written by husband Allan and illustrated by wife Janet Ahlberg, this was created in the 80s and is still going strong.

From all my unique experiences of living with an Aquarian husband, I have learned to accept and enjoy the fact that unplanned outings can be so much fun, too. And it is a very tough proposition for a strict Capricorn like me who is a stickler for routines and HATES surprises!

Once DH asked me to get dressed and get into the car with the kids and said we were going on a long ride. The long ride turned out to be a 3-day, 300 miles trip all the way up the breath-taking Scottish Highlands! Good thing I always have a spare set of clothes for everyone, but still we had to pick up underwear and some tops to go with our live-in Jeans and other toiletries and essentials on the go :o). Stayed in hotels in remote places and the memories of that trip linger on even now, the best trip I have ever had in my lifetime. No sticking to time, no ticking off places, no packing stuff, no breaking heads over routes and stops. It was daring, chilling, thrilling and it tasted precisely like liberation and freedom, even heaven!

The mantra is to let go of plans but not the fun mood and just flow on. Every once in a while, at least.

This story is just about that.

On a dark dark hill
there was a dark dark town.
In the dark dark town
there was a dark dark street.
In the dark dark street
there was a dark dark house.
In the dark dark house
there was a dark dark staircase.
Down the dark dark staircase
there was a dark dark cellar.
And in the dark dark cellar……some skeletons lived

A big skeleton, a little skeleton and a dog skeleton. One day they feel quite bored and plan to go out in the dark with the agenda of scaring people and having fun. They go outside and enter a park. They start playing around and in the process, the skeleton dog crashes and gets all his bones dislodged. The little and big skeleton try assembling, getting it wrong several times before fixing it back the right way.

Which brought to my mind a fresh picture of the tent pack-up distaster we had: me screaming out the instructions, frustrated Dad not really getting the hang of it, boys chasing bunnies with obnoxious screams and finally us realizing that all it needed was a "Hips don't Lie Shakira style" shake and flip of the rim to get it back inside the bag :o) . Funny they never let you in on these cheats in the instructions paper.

Anyways, the skeletons don't find anybody to frighten and end up in a skeleton zoo and have fun again. Finally they realize they haven't really achieved the purpose of their outing, but there's just nobody on the streets to scare! So they decide to scare each other, but fail miserably, albeit enjoying themselves a lot.

In the end is a little twist to the story. A frightening thing does happen, but who scares who?!? Eventually they go back home ( and I loved this bit so much, it is always just the thing we say when we open the doors and get in after a nice trip!) and unanimously agree that " That was fun!" even if they hadn't quite succeeded in what they planned to do. They then realize it is getting light and they should be in bed. The skeletons wish each other good morning and go to bed for a tight sleep.

There is enough repetition that will appeal to little ones and they will love the pictures and the friendly skeletons. There are many Funnybones books featuring these skeletons and my son would always ask me to pick one if he saw them in the library. We also discovered it was a hit television series as well.

Funnybones. Rib-tickling read!

Tea Break - Ginger

The freezing temperatures and long hours of snowball fights demand this throat and tum warming tea for sure! Bye bye colds, sore throats and sinus pains!

It has been a while since my last post. I got into that zone where you think all that blogging or FB activities or twitter posts or any social appearance you had made online are mocking at you. And you think why you ever started it all in the first place and made a fool of yourself.  Perhaps you have been a bit too over enthusiastic?

But it is a passing phase, I realized. That familiar feeling of gloom that hits us every now and then.

Then the Snow came. Nothing much. Only a few odd inches and yet it brought out the child in everybody, as always. It is a always feeling of great ecstasy to behold the snow that blankets the town in shimmering whites. There is certainly something so mesmerizing about the snow.

For the first time ever, I started looking at the snow extra closely just to see if I could make out the famous no-twin-anywhere flake patterns. And what a successful treasure hunt it had become! So many crystals, so beautiful, so alluring! So hypnotizing!

If only I had a proper camera to capture them. I have heard of flakes being enormous and the pictures some folks have taken make me so jealous! But the flakes here were really tiny, about a fifth of a small mustard seed. The patterns, though, were just out of the world!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were the only pics ( and many of similar quality) I managed to take in my mobile phone, which is quite primitive. But I was so glad I took the time to look into the snow. Every bit that shimmered like sequin was a perfect geometrical wonder. I close my eyes now and I can only see little patterns in my inward eye ( If Wordsworth hadn't written about the Daffodils, I swear I'd have written the poem to mean the Snow flakes :o) ). It is most certainly the bliss of solitude!

Then I had to trade my solitude for the infectious enthusiasm of my boys, and went sledging with them. This time I did see that flash upon my inward eye again, but it turned out to be the after effects of hours of innumerable bumps and tumbles and the painful beckoning of my barely-there bottom!

Came home to a hot bath, tea, hot chocolate and plain buttered toasts. And a Wodehouse for me and Tinkle for boys!

So much of contentment meant only one thing. Snoozing off and drooling even before you knew it!

And That accounts for the missing blog posts.