My Mother's Sari

Any parent with a girl child will know about their fascination for Sarees. My D is also not an exception. She converts anything from bath towels to my duppattas into a Sari and the moment she is wearing Sari, her whole attittude changes and she bacomes bossy as a mom or a teacher. So when I saw "My mother's sari", I knew she is going to like this book.

The book, though, is not exactly a story book. It is more pictorial and has just one liners per page. It takes us to the world of a child who imagines her mother's sari as a train one day and a river or a rope next day. She swings in it, slides and hides in it, dances with it and sleeps wrapping the it around her. She enjoys the color and texture of the sari and for her it is the most fascinating thing.

The pictures are very colorful and are the combination of photographs and paintings. The texts are simple and minimal. And the best part of the book is the step by step instructions for wearing sari spread across the first and last pages of the book. There are pistures to collaborate the instruction and thats the part little D loves the most. She is a bit small to understand the instructions on her own though.

Now the only problem with this book is, D is pestering me for wearing Sari :-( Personally, I dont prefer wearing it as it is too much work compared to Salwars. But I too remember wearing mock Sarees during my childhood. So this fascination may not be forever :-)

The book is penned by Sandhya Rao and beautifully illustrated by Nina Sabnani. As per the publisher (Tulika publishers) this book is for 'read aloud' for 3+ year olds and 'read alone' for 6+ year olds. The US edition of the book was selected as one of the "Outstanding international Books for 2007". It is a good book especially for girls, but, I feel the price tag for Rs.150/- is a bit high for it.

The Donut Chef

Have you ever felt suffocated by choices and wished things were simpler like old times? I do. Whenever I keep changing channels in radio and TV and find nothing worth listening or watching, I wish for the good old times in my childhood with just a few channels in "Akasavani" and "Doordarsan". Everybody will huddle together and listen/watch whatever is available and the quality of programs then were much better than what all the 100+ channels are offering these days. Or so I remember. (The memories of the past are sometimes larger than life!) Anyway, if you have craved for things to be simpler again, you will be able to relate to this book.

The story is about a donut chef who, on a summer's day, decided to open a donut shop on a busy street. It was a cozy little shop and the chef set it up pretty fast. Soon his "Donut Land" became so popular in the neighbourhood that people lined outside his shop for Donuts. With success comes competition and soon a mean chef opened another donut shop next door named "Donut World". Soon the question in customers minds were "Whose donuts are the very best?" Hence the competition began. Each shop used various tactics to attract customers. The chopped prices, added more chocolate frost and as the competition thickened they even gave the donuts for free. The next step was to create new flavours and shapes and soon the obsession produced bizzare flavours like "Peanut-Brickle Buttermilk" and "Gooey Cocoa-Mocha Silk". Even the shapes changed so much that the donuts started looking like calamari and macaroni.  To cut long story short, they lost the soul and even the hole of donuts.

And finally the much needed wake up call came in the form of Debby Sue, a teeny little two year old. Debby Sue got dazed with all the choices found in the shop. After staring at all the weird shped and flavored donuts, she asked the Donut Chef:

""'Scuse me. Mister," said the tyke
"But, where's the donut that I like?
It isn't here, it isn't there -
You think it's under that eclair?" "

The donut chef, so confident that he has all the possible flavors and shapes, commented:

" "If we don't have it, you can bet
    It can't be found - at least, not yet." "

But, Debbie Sue was very adamant. She stated that "But I want ....glazed!"

The crowd as well as the chef were surprised at her choice. That was  a flavor nobody had heard for a long long time. Chef mocked Debbie as her choice was so old time. But then, one by one, the crowd demanded too - simple donuts dipped in glaze. The clever chef got the hint and hastily made a batch of simple glazed donuts. Debbie Sue got the first one which she gobbles up and comments:

"Mmmmmmm! There's nothing quite like glazed, I think! "

On popular demand, chef produced more glazed donuts and renamed his shop to "Amazing Glazed".

The book ends with

" The donut chef. he'd never guessed,
  Of all the flavors he did test,
  That most folks love a glazed the BEST! "

A very cute book with lovely illustrations. The author of the book is Bob Staake. According to the book cover his Golden Book "The Red Lemon" was New York Times best illustrated children's book of the year. Adding it to my ever growing wish list. So, sooner or later I will be writing about it :-)