A sea prayer - for children at sea

Khaled Hosseini's book for children, Sea Prayer, was an appropriate book to read as this year slowly draws to an end. This slim children's book is a requiem to loss - the loss of home, homeland, security, identity, relationships, a way of life - the annihilating, bewildering, confounding loss faced by refugees everywhere. It is also a prayer - not for oneself but for one's child, for "the most precious cargo there ever was". Hosseini sums up the refugee's fate "unwanted, unwelcome" wherever they go, their hearts unhinged, their future as unstable and threatening as the stormy sea.   

Dan Williams, the illustrator, has transformed the emotions evoked by Hosseini's words into images that are a visual delight. There are the warm yellow tones of sunlit afternoons drenched in nostalgia, the blue-black hues that capture the uncertainty and fear in the hearts of the refugees as they wait for a perilous sea-journey to take them to safety, the bright bursts of red poppies like the laughter of children playing in the garden. 

This children's book brings the focus on an aspect of childhood that is rarely in the limelight - children at peril and in exile. 

Getting your child to read

Do children read these days? Never having done a survey, I can't say for sure, but going by the sales of books, and the increasing occurrence of children's literature festivals, either the kids are reading a lot, or someone out there is hoping and praying and working really hard to make sure they do!

How does one ensure that children read regularly and enjoy the act of reading? After teaching kids of all ages to love literature, here are a few tips that I know work for sure -

1. Remember they are watching you! Your child may not listen to all that you say, but she is certainly watching you as you go about your day. If you spend a lot of time on the phone, she will wish to do the same, if you like to walk around the park, she will want to go cycling there, and if you spend some time reading every day, she will pick up a book too! Do spend some time reading every day, and talk to your child about the book she is reading.

What if you aren't a reader? Well, become one. Kids love to imitate their parents and so try to read something every day. It can be the newspaper, magazines, recipe books, the atlas, or your prayer book. The point is, that you should be spending some time with your child with a book in your hand.

2. Keep some books lying around the house - That might not be welcome advice if you are the kind of parent who's obsessive about everything being in its rightful place, but, hey, you can ensure you have a little bookshelf in every room or a little basket in which nestle the books you and your child are reading currently.

3. Get to know the books that are available in the market - especially books by Indian writers. Don't get caught in the trap of buying only retold folktales, moral stories, educational books or Enid Blyton - because that's what YOU grew up with! There's nothing wrong with them, but the children's book market today has an exciting range of genres and offerings, and I am sure you'd like your child to benefit from it. Become a part of FB groups that discuss children's books and keep yourself updated with the latest and most recommended publications. 

4. Choose diverse books - read across genres and authors. don't try to stick to one sort of book. Your child may have tastes that are different from yours. Remember that a children's book serves as a window and a mirror - it offers the child a mirror to her world, and gives her an opportunity to look out into other worlds.

There's lots and lots of other ways to raise a reader - you will find out for yourself, and I will share more tips in another post. Until then, open a book ... those squiggles on the page are the password into a wacky and wild world!

Reading children's books from Japan

THE BARBER’S DILEMMA AND OTHER STORIES FROM MANMARU STREET

By Koki Oguma and Gita Wolf, illustrations by the author, Tara Books, 2017, pp. 44, Rs. 450.

Young children play in the most unstructured manner. A child holding a ladle may decide it is a mike and begin to sing a song. Moments later, the ladle becomes an umbrella, or a bus, or a spoon to stir her mother's coffee. A game of pretend swordsmanship transforms into one playing with fallen flowers and seeds, or a classroom game. There is a marvellous sense of fluidity in the way children negotiate their way through a world that seems infinitely wondrous and ever-changing.



Koki Oguma's stories and illustrations attempt this unstructured, even stream-of-consciousness method of negotiating with the world. He is an art teacher in Tokyo and created this book when he was artist-in-residence at Tara Books, Chennai, a couple of years ago. Oguma writes about the people who live and work and play on Manmaru Street. 

There's Ms. Oda who made a giant candy which reminds her of a slide, and so she and her friend slide down the candy, licking it as they go along.

And there's Mr. Tuchida who wants to build a house on his head. As the house takes shape, his neck begins to hurt with the weight of the bricks. A kind builder gently puts a compress on it. 






Mr. Isoda, a fisherman, listens to the river and begins to speak its language. HeMr. is so good at it, that a shoal of fish mistake his mouth for the river and enter it. Oguma writes, "Mr. Isoda didn't mind at all."

Oguma's tales are more like slice-of-life renditions. The word 'stories' in the title may mislead you into expecting traditionally structured tales. But as you read further, you realise that these are tales of the everyday - of the ridiculous, the philosophical, the quirkiness, and the profundity in the quotidian.

The spare quality of the text is complemented by the rich creativity of the drawings. Oguma's paintings are full of whimsy and flights of fancy rendered in a pastel palette which gives it a dream-like feel. 

A return to childhood - Kampung Boy

It amazes me at times that while we share a cultural and social history with several nations in Asia, one would never guess it going by the popular culture and social media that form a large part of our lives. Our bookstores, for instance, display tons of European, American as well as African books, but almost nothing from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam or China.

On a recent trip to Malaysia, therefore, I was on the lookout for children's books by local authors. It wasn't easy, for most bookstores (like the ones in India) displayed American and British children's titles or some Malaysian titles in Bahasa. After some questioning and prodding of the staff at the stores, I was delighted to find children's books by Malaysian and Chinese authors. I bought six and began reading them on returning home.

Lat published his first book for children, Kampung Boy, in 1979. It's an autobiographical narrative in which he attempts to recreate the days of his childhood living in a traditional Malay house called a kampung while growing up on a rubber plantation. 

Two years later, he followed it up with Town Boy, which describes the years he spent in Ipoh where he went to live when he was eleven. A decade later, he published Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today juxtaposing contemporary and earlier Malay childhood using the same format of brilliantly illustrated pages, largely in black and white, and accompanying text.

  

Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today by Lat - whose real name is Mohammed Nor - is an absolute delight to read. Lat takes us down memory lane, through homes that were full of love and inventiveness, and playgrounds where every toy had to be created by the children and their parents. The games they played included equal participation by ants, pangolins, cows, angry honeybees and sleepy pythons. Rural life is presented as exciting rather than bucolic, full of adventure and, at times, danger.

Of course, there's a lot of nostalgia and a lot of idealisation of childhood. But there's also a subtle plea to parents to cease being over-protective, helicoptering, competitive mums and dads. 






The artwork of Kampung Boy - a mixture of caricature and evocative detailing - is wonderfully expressive, enabling the author-illustrator to say a lot without using too many words. Lat doesn't follow the graphic novel format favoured by a number of contemporary writers, or the manga style that originated in Japan. Instead, moving as he does from being a newspaper cartoonist-columnist to one attempting an autobiographical narrative,  he uses the page as a canvas and fills it up with a single scene that captures the essence of the tale he wants to tell.   

I introduced the book to a group of students who have learning differences and built a reading and writing activity around it. It was heartening to see that they liked the book a great deal, and would either stay back and try and read a few more pages or come in early the next day to continue with the story. The illustrations helped them make sense of the story and the minimal text and unusual fonts used by the author made it easier for them to read the narration. 

The one thing I did not like about Lat's work was that I detected a certain internalisation of colonial attitudes, though. As the children - depicted with 'non-human' expressions - leave their 'nature-phase' behind them and enter the world of schools and academia, their faces take on more human orientations. I shall probably have to examine the whole of the Kampung series before making very definitive statements.

All in all, a great addition to your library!

#femmeMarch – Indian YA Books and the Class Divide

A couple of years ago, I happened to listen to Andaleeb Wajid (at St. Joseph’s College where I was teaching then) talk about her books and the writing process. I hadn’t yet read any of her books - her first, Kite Strings, was published in 2009 – but was very impressed by the author herself -  warm, articulate and approachable. Dressed in a black abaya, a pastel hijab and an amused smile, she described how she managed to fit her writing into her busy life, and still have time for social media and friends. She explained that she focuses on the teen reader, for whom there aren’t too many options, and that her characters were invariably Muslim. That interested me for most Indian books for teenagers hardly ever featured Muslim or Christian or Buddhist characters, except as sidekicks.

In the last nine years, Andaleeb has published fifteen books (that’s right!) with the latest, titled Twenty Nine Going On Thirty out this month. Most of them are written for the Young Adult reader (14-24 years) and feature romance and food. Lately, she has experimented with the horror genre, which she says she enjoys reading. She works with several different publishers including Juggernaut Books who are changing the way people read (For the first time ever, I read a book on my phone with the Juggernaut app 😊). A single publisher probably wouldn't be able to keep up with her amazing output.

That afternoon, I went away telling myself I would soon read a book by Andaleeb but I didn’t (My bad). Not until this week, that is. As part of my #femmeMarch reading, I was keeping an eye out for women writers – global, local, writing for adults, teens or children. And that’s how I finally picked up Andaleeb’s Asmara’s Summer and kept my promise to myself 😊.

Asmara, the protagonist and the first-person narrator, is a pampered teenager who has had a privileged upbringing. To her absolute mortification, she is expected to spend a month of her summer holidays with her grandparents who live in an area perceived as shabby, down-market and conservative. All these years, she has not even let on to her best friends that her grandparents live there! Asmara dreads her ‘summer from hell’ with no air-conditioning, no cool stuff to do, and no Wi-Fi. But, no worries, for it’s a romance, and so good things loom ahead, including a new BFF and a neighbor who is a handsome hunk.

The best part of the book for me is that it looks at class issues in the face, at how we resort to stereotypes about ‘those’ people and ‘their style’ of dressing and the food ‘they’ like to eat. Asmara moves to Tannery Road with all these narrow labels firmly in place and even sets up a new Instagram account to bitch about ‘the bling’ and the ‘loud glitzy colours’ used by people living ‘there’. But luckily, Asmara is a thinking person, and soon, uses her critical faculties to understand others and herself better.

What did not work for me is that the narrative doesn’t take the critical gaze far enough – while Asmara makes friends in the neighbourhood, she doesn’t dwell on what underlying social structures set this area apart from posher areas in Bangalore. How do they manage with intermittent water supply? Why are the schools and college in the neighbourhood not great places to study in? Why do the Tannery Road residents have to be helped by someone from a posh part of the city? The book is a quick and easy read and contents itself by merely scratching the surface of the classist times we live in.  

It’s #femmeMarch! Have you read a book by a woman today?

March isn't only about the madness of the March hare, or exam fever. It's #femmemarch month and a time to celebrate women writers. And so, I spent this afternoon reading two very interesting books on Storyweaver. Not only are they written by women, they are about women too.

StoryWeaver is this amazing platform where at last count, 7313 stories have been published online in 109 languages! It is an offshoot of Pratham Books and seeks to ensure that every child in India can read a story in the language of her choice. The stories are not controlled by copyright, and children, teachers, parents and librarians anywhere in the world can read them online, download them, print them, make copies and circulate them. StoryWeaver allows you to contribute in terms of creating new stories, contributing artwork, translating or re-levelling existing stories. I cannot think of a more noble, wonderful, or applause-worthy venture.

The two books I read were Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments with Weather by Nandita Jayaraj and illustrated by the extraordinary Priya Kurian, and The Cottonwool Doctor by Michelle Mathews and illustrated by Jean de Wet. The first is a Level 3 book and the second is a Level 2 book. Level 2 books deal with simple concepts and have upto 600 words, while Level 3 books make use of longer sentences and can be upto 1500 words long. Both books are biographies, based on real people and describe women’s accomplishments in the field of science and technology.

Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments is about Dr. Anna Mani, an Indian physicist and meteorologist who built almost a hundred weather gadgets. As a child, Anna loved books and spent all her free time reading. She cried when she was gifted diamonds on her birthday as she would have preferred to receive books. 

The Cottonwool Doctor traces the life of Margaret Bulkly who lived in the nineteenth century. Her parents spent all their money on their son’s education (sounds familiar?) and had nothing left for their daughter. With help from her uncle and a family friend, she dressed like a boy, changed her name and enrolled in medical school. 

Henceforth, she was known as Dr. James Barry and travelled all over the world with no one realizing that she was a woman until AFTER she DIED. What an amazing life this brave and determined woman must have led!

Do check out StoryWeaver.org.in for some interesting children’s books.

On meeting Vidya Mani

Last week, I was at a workshop at Christ, Bangalore, where I met an amazing person called Vidya Mani. She radiated positivity, energy and passion for children’s books, having made it her life’s mission to get children to read. And read some more. She calls herself a children’s books ‘writer-editor-bookclubber-bookshopper’ and leads an incredible life immersed in children’s books.

Vidya is behind several children’s magazines, including Chatterbox, Quest, Junior Quest, Hoot and Toot, a founding member of Bookalore, a children’s book club in Bangalore, managing editor of Goodbooks, a children’s book review site, and a co-owner of Funky Rainbow, a travelling children’s bookshop. Whew, she certainly sounds like she has packed the achievements of several lifetimes into one, doesn’t she?

What I love about Vidya (other than her infectious enthusiasm, her smile, and her vast collection of books) is her belief in and dedication to INDIAN children’s literature. She not only writes for children, she also promotes books by other Indian authors.

And the best thing I like best about her is that she thinks children should be FREE to decide what they want to read, and that adults should let children read for FUN, rather than information and improvement.

May her tribe increase!

Caravan to Tibet

Caravan to Tibet

Deepa Agarwal’s Caravan to Tibet is set in the 19th century in the mountainous regions of India and Tibet. 14-year old Debu becomes the youngest member of a caravan of traders to undertake the dangerous journey to Tibet, for he is in search of his father who went missing almost a year ago in a blinding snowstorm. Debu has many adventures along the way, including being kidnapped by a band of robbers and participating in a horse race. He is also pitted against the obnoxious and malevolent Trilok Singh, the man who might be his future stepfather, according to the custom of levirate marriage followed by the Shauka community. The book is both a work of historical fiction as well as a coming-of-age narrative. It was nominated for the IBBY Award.

        Much of the book is about the process of the boy becoming a man, a long, testing and tough process that highlights the conventional notion of manhood. Debu ceases being a ‘mere’ child and becomes a man when he develops and displays courage, self-control and daring. Being a man is not determined by one’s age, education or intellectual achievements but by physical strength, ability to fight, handle a weapon and survive a crisis. His strength and generosity of spirit are foregrounded via an obnoxious character like Trilok; his self-control and marksmanship are highlighted against the temperamental and moody robber chief; and his skill at negotiating is pitted against the imperious and haughty Garphan whose word cannot be countermanded.

        Caravan is written in the style of a traditional hero story – a young boy goes out on a quest or journey generally looking for something of great value which could prove to be life-changing and encounters a number of adventures en route, and finally emerges victorious.

        A problem I have with this otherwise beautifully written book is that it is unable to subvert the conditions of historical fiction. History has traditionally been about the male and within Caravan continues to be so. The narration tells us that in the harsh environs of the mountains, only the strong, brave, shrewd and enterprising individual will survive. But by locating these qualities in a male hero and not giving any space in the narrative to a female hero, Caravan implies that to survive and prosper, one must be either a male or identify oneself as male. To be female is to be at a disadvantage as with Debu’s mother who is not even named in the narrative, and is completely ignorant of her husband’s financial affairs; she fears having to marry Trilok according to the customs of her community but lacks the ability to protest against it. The book reiterates the male perspective that the world is for the man, that boys should grow up into men and that women are secondary and lack agency. 

Newspapers and Journals – Children’s literature in Colonial India

The newspaper and the periodical played a significant role in developing children’s literature in pre-independence India.  Many newspapers kept aside a column or page every week for publishing children’s literature. Some journals and periodicals also followed this practice while some were dedicated to children’s literature. Both children and adults wrote for them. Songs, riddles, puzzles, short stories, serialization of novels and illustrations formed the content of these publications. Not only did these journals serve as a display for older talented writers but also helped discover many new writers. Well known journals exclusively for children include V.G. Apte’s pioneering effort, Ānand, from 1906, Sandesh published in Bengali from 1913, Shewak Bhojraj’s magazine, Gulistān, in Sindhi, and an Oriya magazine, Panchāmratha, launched in 1928.

        The best known and most influential of all children’s magazines during this time was Sandesh, primarily the work of one family, Upendrakishore Roychowdhury and his descendents. It was in Sandesh that Roychowdhury, his son Sukumar Ray and grandson Satyajit Ray, first published most of their works for children. Some of their writing which appeared here first are now classics of children’s literature - such as Roychowdhury’s Goopy Gyne Bāgha Byne, Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol and Satyajit Ray’s Feluda Series.  

Sandesh was not only instrumental in developing children’s taste for quality literature but also found, encouraged, and developed a number of talented authors and artists. Mahasweta Devi wrote delightful stories for children in Sandesh which have now been published in an English translation, Our Non-Veg Cow and Other Stories by Seagull Books.

Trash – from Tara Books

It’s International Labour Day today, a celebration of labour and the working classes. In India, child labour is officially banned, but it prevails in spite of government injunctions. In Bangalore, where I live, one often encounters children begging at traffic signals, children selling flowers, stationery, tiny little toys, tissue paper ... It is ironical and heartwrenching that these children are selling stuff that they should be enjoying (flowers, toys) or using (stationery, tissue paper).  In an increasingly materialistic society, should we not realise that investing in the children will lead to healthier, better-informed, and more productive adults tomorrow?

        

In this context, I want to write about a very different kind of book, called Trash by Gita Wolf and Anushka Ravishankar, and illustrated by Orijit Sen. It’s published by Tara Books, famous for the unique slant they bring to children's books and to the art of book making (more about that later).

Trash is about twelve year old Velu who runs away from home and a drunk abusive stepfather, and arrives at Chennai. An older girl, Jaya, takes him under her wing, and they live on the streets and work as ragpickers. Velu learns all about garbage (what sells, what doesn’t), how to get his dues, how the rich are wasteful and often throw away almost as much as they consume, and very importantly, Velu learns to enjoy himself (Fridays are for Rajnikanth movies and, sometimes, a sweet bun) even as he undergoes a rather painful lesson on how to manage his income.  

Tara Books

Tara Books is unique in several ways. It is one of India’s first publishing houses set up with the desire to give children a more nuanced literature and one that incorporates elements of visual storytelling; it is also famous for their handmade books – books that are made entirely by hand - from the paper to the artwork, the printing and the binding. They have popularized several forms of tribal art – and have not only revived some of these dying art forms, but have also offered the child reader a completely different world view in the process. They publish fiction and non-fiction books on a range of subjects and themes, and all their books are informed by a deep-rooted concern for human rights, gender equality, tribal cultures and children’s rights. The book, Trash received a SPECIAL MENTION in the White Ravens Catalogue for World’s Best Children’s Book 2000. 

Why do we need children’s books?

A majority of us are often nostalgic about our childhood and the books we read then and the stories we heard. However, children’s texts are not necessarily what adults deem ‘literary’. Children read story books, comic books, joke books, picture books, children’s magazines and Pokemon cards, watch television, movies and animated shows, play video games, -- and attempt to relate each of these to their lives.

Should we allow children to ‘waste’ their time reading all the above, or should they only read ‘good’ books?

I like to think of children’s books as the foundational texts of a society.

Every culture has its foundational texts. These are the texts that have helped shape a worldview, a system of ethics, helped mediate the relationship between the individual and society, or the individual and God. Epics like the Iliad, the Ramayana, scriptural texts like the Bible, the Quran, the Gita, legal texts like the constitution of India, the UN Declaration of Human Rights all these belong to a certain culture, and arise from the wisdom of the people, just as they contribute to people’s wisdom.

Similarly, there is a group of individuals here in our society who have their own foundational texts, who draw from these texts to make meaning of the world they live in, who return to these texts time and again, even when they travel from their world into other worlds, who remember their foundational texts with pleasure and longing as long as they live.

I am of course, speaking of children and the books they read. Most of us tend to remember the stories, we read, the songs we heard, the tales we were told, as children. The words, emotions, characters, we encounter in these stories songs and songs become a part of our everyday vocabulary and the way we look at the world. They awaken our imagination and help us live other lives, travel to other worlds, explore the universe. They help us in our meaning-making. I read somewhere that geniuses like Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page and others all loved reading science fiction as children. The act of reading helped them open their eyes to different worlds and different ways of doing things, and they could draw upon the vast reservoirs of their imagination to create the unique products they are famous for. So you see, it would be awesome if more children read, and read more, even though some parents and teachers may dismiss children’s books as silly and insignificant.

Don’t ever forget, children's books can actually contribute to the conceptualization of a better society!

Tales from the House of Bunnincula Series

I stumbled on this series, during my periodic trips to those shabby out-of-the-way shops that advertise ‘BOOKS SOLD BY THE KILO’. You enter a semi-dark room, wondering what you will find, and if you are a bibliophile like me, you prepare yourself for an amazing sight. Especially, if you are a vertically challenged bibliophile like me. You are surrounded by books, piled up on the floor, or arranged on rough wooden tables knocked together for this purpose. There are thousands, make that tens of thousands, of books from every genre that one can think of. I love going to such shops as I come across titles I do not encounter in more traditional bookstores. 

And that’s how I found Bunnincula, a pet rabbit adopted by the Monroe family, and said to have strange vampire-like taste in matters of food and drink.

The books are written with cracking humour by James Howe and illustrated magnificently by Brett Helquist. 

The House of Bunnincula series is a spin-off by the original series purportedly written by the family dog, Harold. In this new series, the story is narrated by a puppy, Howie, who sees himself as an aspiring writer. The first book, It Came From Beneath the Bed! is, in Howie’s words, “about how a talented and lovable (not to mention smart) wirehaired dachshund puppy named Howie saves the world from a disgusting, evil menace named...oops, that would give away the story”. Howie soon discovers that a writer’s life isn’t easy. “My friend Delilah stopped speaking to me because I put her in my book. Uncle Harold stopped speaking to me because I didn't put him in my book”.

The fun never stops as long as Howie is picking up writing . 

He also enjoys himself playing the hero and saving the world from a science experiment gone wrong. There are six books in the series, and they are all enjoyable. 

Moon Mountain

I picked up a copy of the graphic novel, Moon Mountain, a year ago, but got around to reading it only last week. Moon Mountain is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s classic children’s book Chander Pahar (1937). I have always been fascinated by his Pather Panchali, especially his sensitive depiction of the unfortunate Durga. 

The art work of the graphic novel is dominated by dark colours, speaking of a brooding personality, and perilous adventures. At first glance, I wondered whether children would find it appealing, especially since the adaptation has stuck to the linear perspective employed by Bandopadhyay, and begun with Shankar’s disappointment at having to work at a dead-end job in a small town after his college years in the dazzling metropolis of early twentieth century Calcutta.

The story unravels rather slowly in the first few pages, but the action panels on page 2 provide us with a hint of the adventure to come. I especially liked the way in which the illustrator, Mukherjee, has made use of repeated figures to indicate the flow of time. Soon enough, a few pages later, our intrepid hero is in Uganda in East Africa, working for a construction company laying new railway lines.

Shankar faces many adventures both at the hand of predatory and dangerous animals. The excitement picks up when he rescues a veteran explorer, Diego Alvarez, who tells him of how he had traced the fabled diamond mines of Richtersveld. Soon enough, Shankar is infected with the gold-and-diamond fever, and he sets off with Diego to explore the wilderness, and also, find himself.

 Other than the protagonist, Shankar, a central character is Diego Alvarez. Like Kurtz of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Diego is a complex person who also believes in the Empire’s mission and modus operandi of claiming all that the natives own as his. Like a good coloniser, he even draws Shankar into the enterprise of the Empire. But during the resulting adventure, Shankar learns to think for himself and while he loves and respects Alvarez, chooses to strike out a path different from that of his mentor.  

It is interesting to note that while the author of the original text, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, had never travelled to Africa, he researched the place considerably. Thus, the narrative strikes very few false notes. 

When Bandopadhyay first published his novel, it seized the imagination of readers with its descriptions of Africa, its velds, its mountains, its wildlife and, of course, the allure of gold, silver – and diamonds! Chander Pahar was translated into English in 2002, reimagined as a film and as a graphic novel in 2013-14. 

The script for the graphic novel is by US-based Saurav Mohapatra and the illustrations are by Sayan Mukherjee. Children are sure to find this an enjoyable read.

(All the images are taken from the book)

Should children’s books be used for advertising?

This question popped up in a discussion group recently, and as you can guess, there were different opinions. Some laughed at the idea, while a few admitted to feeling disturbed.

A blogger who seems to be all for it had this to say:

It’s time that books embrace advertising. You could do it in so many tasteful ways.

1. Limit it to three advertisements per book.

2. Have a single sponsor for the book.

3. Allow consumers discounts on the book price if they agree to receive emailed ads from a selected advertiser.

4. Insert an advertising flier into a book.

Put ads only between chapters, or at the end of the book.

However, what if publishers resort to product placement, like it is done in movies? Would it have raised eyebrows or seemed part of a consumerist world if J.K. Rowling had written, “Harry pulled on his GAP shirt and Levi’s, and made sure his VISA card was in his wallet, before heading to Hogsmeade”?

How about Roald Dahl’s favourite poem reading like this:

“The most important thing we’ve learned,

So far as children are concerned,

Is never, NEVER, NEVER let

Them near your television set –

(Unless it’s a Sony, or better yet,

A Panasonic 72)”

Some feel it would be crass, and could cause problems. If the brand image of the product takes a beating. Or, what if an unthinking publisher advertises Pan Parag in John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars?

Then again, advertising in books, even in children’s books isn’t very new.

A popular advertisement for the Charles Atlas Bodybuilding Plan

In the 1970s, most books for children carried advertisements for other books from the same publishing house. The Archie comics regularly carried mail-order advertisements for costume jewelry, Hostess Twinkies, toys and magic tricks such as X-Ray Spex!

Kirk Demarais, artist and historian, made a short film, titled, “Flip”, about a boy who dreams of buying all such $1 products and living a wonderful life. Demarais also wrote Mail-Order Mysteries, a book about the truth behind these advertisements.

So, should we allow children’s books to be appropriated by marketing? Children’s movies (and books) already have a lot of merchandising tied up with them. Is the next step product placement and full-page glossy ads for toothpaste and doughnuts?

You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child

Welcome to my blog on children’s books.

Children's books often constitute our first exposure to the act of reading and writing, the beauty of narrative and the delightful aesthetics of illustration.

Children’s books are not only about literacy, fun and adventure but also serve as a foundational literature. As adults, we may or may not read fiction, non-fiction, (auto)biography, or anthologies of short stories/poems, but we have all, everyone of us, read them as children. Even those of us who preferred to play football or a videogame to reading a book, had to perforce, read our textbooks in school and have been exposed to random pieces of poetry, short stories, one-act plays, etc. And years and decades later, these return to haunt us, and make us chuckle in remembrance or indulge in an Aha!  moment.

I read dozens, no make that hundreds, of books as a child. As an adolescent, and later, in adulthood, I continued devouring books, and thought I had moved past my fascination with children’s books. I dug into my children’s book collection whenever younger cousins came visiting, and when they went away, reread the books again. I travelled to the Far Away Land, admired Fatty’s skill at disguises, and longed to visit Jupiter Jones’ junkyard. I also wondered about Premchand’s character, Hamid, who bought tongs for his grandmother, and Tagore’s Mini, who had long happy chats with the Kabuilwallah.

In this blog, I shall review and explore children’s and Young Adult books from different parts of the country and the world.

Read along, and write to me your thoughts on books, reading and blogging.