Tulika at our local library. Yesssss. Yessssss. Yesssss. Finally it is happening, the dream is coming true. But there is a conditionality clause associated with the dream.

The San Jose library has a system. If the material has not been borrowed for more than a year, their policy is to take it off the shelves. Considering the severe budget crisis the libraries are facing, they are monitoring the genre of books to be purchased. So if you are in the San Jose area, search your local libraries for children’s books from Indian publishers, especially the foreign language (Hindi, Tamil and such) ones and make it a point to borrow it. I found these Tulika titles in the JUVENILE FOREIGN LANGUAGE(Hindi) section. Search your catalog, ask your librarian, make purchase recommendations and BORROW, BORROW, BORROW. San Jose bloggers spread the word.

Karadi mama comes home, thanks to YadaYada. She always asks my children what they want for their birthday and they always send her on wild goose chases like this. But when she asks me, I give her something tangible to work with 🙂 So we are now proud owners of Karadi’s four new hard bound books – The Lizard’s tail, When The Earth Lost Its Shapes, The Boy Who Drew Cats and The Rumour. Expect reviews soon. Right now its time to show off our bookshelf.

Tara Books are now available in Amazon. I can buy it locally without having to wait for the holy book pilgrimage to India. I am so buying One, Two, Tree ASAP.  Few books are also available in our local library, all of which have been put on hold by yours truly.

EDITED TO ADD CLUES.

Long time since we played this. So we have two pics.

Pic1: There are five books. Guess the names of the books.
Clue1: All are children’s books. Target age group 3+ – 8.
Clue2: If you have been following book publishers blogs, it is easy to pick out the cover art.

Pic2: This is the book I am reading currently.
Clue1: Young adult book, but……I read it anyway. So deal with it.
Clue2: It is Newbery Medal award winner.

Rules:
Quiz closes by May 28, 5.30PM PST.
Results will be out May 31, 4.00AM PST
The first person to get all the 6 books right before May 28, 5.30PM PST wins.
The reward is a big round of applause. Currently very affordable 🙂

The books are as follows.

Pic1: Assuming I have sorted out my left-right confusion,

Top left: The Boy Who Drew Cats by Anushka Ravishankar, Illustrations Christine Kastl, Published by Karadi Tales

Top right: The Rumour by Anushka Ravishankar, Illustrations by Kanyiki Kini, Published by Karadi Tales

Bottom left: When The Earth Lost It’s Shapes by Shobha Viswanath, Illustrations Chistine Kastl, Published by Karadi Tales

Bottom right: The Lizard’s Tail by Shobha Viswanath, Illustrations by Christine Kastl, Published by Karadi Tales

Left middle: All About Nothing, Concept and Art by Nina Sabnani, Written by Deepa Nayar, Published by Tulika

Pic2: A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Such a vision in 1962!! Amazing!! Planet Camazotz and IT reminded me of certain shades of 1984 by George Orwell. Considering that 1984 was published in 1949, it must have certainly influenced L’Engle. But Wrinkle In Time has a happy ending, unlike 1984(*shudder*), and sends a strong message that love is the ultimate messiah.

A big hand to Sandhya and Kaapi for getting pic 2: A wrinkle In Time right. Good job guys. Sandhya, keen eye, you picked out the Karadi Tales title from my bookshelf.

Chula: They giggle.
Mieja: For what?
C: Nothing. All they do is giggle all the time. They just do that.
M: Really? How do you know?
C: R told me. She knows everything about them.
M: What else?
C: They have metal on their teeth.
M: Really?! How do they eat?
C: They don’t. They drink soda, eat ice cream, eat chocolate and starve. Then they giggle.

They = Teenagers.
Discussion between Chula and Mieja at the breakfast table.
Over heard by yours truly.

The intermittent rains means only one thing in our household and that is Mieja falling sick. Usually the duration in which she is sick is timed between a Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. The whole weekend I would carry her around like a joey and by Monday she would return to school healthy and me exhausted. This time she fell sick on a Monday afternoon. So I was happy for the small blessing.

Overall it was a pretty smooth sickness, we wrapped it off in two days with just one throw up and we vegetated on the couch and read plenty of books. When her temperature spiked she would have her medicine and pass off and I would catch up on my homework and reading work.

Beginning of every semester is time of glee for me. I thoroughly enjoy the process of signing up for the classes I need to do, bidding for used text books on Ebay and such. There is such a kick in getting a three digit dollar price text book for one sixth the price! Now that I am done with all my advanced level courses, I have a few general education courses that need to be done. I was said that I have to have at least one unit in PE(Physical Education). I tried my best to get PE waived in lieu of my stint as a yoga teacher. I am certified and I taught yoga for a good one year. But it did not fly. So I signed up for a Stretch and Flex televised course. Yep, ‘technology has improved sooo much-a?!’ that now I can do a PE course without being on campus. BTW, from my view from the couch, they can stretch a little bit more and flex a bit more 🙂

Some of the books that earned Mieja’s approval(A.K.A read a 100 million times) are below.

Tacky Goes to Camp by Helen Lester, Illustrarted by Lynn Munsinger. What is not to like about a goofy penguin?! Tacky lives in the Antartic with friends Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Perfect and Neatly. The names are apt and pretty much describe the bird. The other penguins go by the book and pack trail mix, first aid kit, blanket, hiking clothes and flashlight for their camping trip and our bird Tacky packs three boxes of cheese pizza with extra cheese, roller skates, cookies and a portable TV. On ‘Sleep Under The Stars Night’ Tacky accidentally ends up saving the other birds from a scary polar bear. Tacky is a laugh riot and there is an entire series based on him.

Animals Should Definitely NOT Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett, illustrator Ron Barrett. Come on admit it! The title hooked you guys in right?! Inside are pictures of a porcupine with quills ripping through his shirt, a snake slithering away from his pants, a giraffe with a multitude of ties to cover his long neck, a moose with his suspenders tangled in his antlers and so on. The book has pictures on one side and simple text on the other side. But for the most part I didn’t even read the text. We just looked at the pictures and burst in to giggles. I am not able to get out of my mind the picture of a hen trying to figure out how to lay her egg through her pants 🙂

I’m Not Cute by Jonathan Allen. On the cover picture is an owlet, with its fluffy feathers and huge eyes and my reflex was, “How cute is that! But the owlet claims that he is not cute?! I have got to read this book.” This is the story of owlet who wants to stroll through the forest and he thinks that no one will bother him because in his head he is mighty scary. But owlet is irritated because even his predators end up giving him squeezy hugs because of his over the top cuteness factor. He claims that he is NOT cute and that he is a “huge, sleek hunting machine with big see-in-the dark eyes”. But no one listens to him, except for his mama. Mama acknowledges that he is not cute and that his is every bit of the “huge, sleek hunting machine with big see-in-the dark eyes” he claims he is. But owlet is stumped, he did not want to hear this from his mama. He rolls on the floor kicking his legs claiming that he is cute. Mama gives him a great big hug and tucks him with a kiss good night saying that she thinks he is super cute for a “huge, sleek hunting machine with big see-in-the dark eyes”.

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. This is the story of a baby llama in a red pajama who is tucked in for the night by his mama. Mama llama thinks all is well and is tidying up the house. But baby llama refuses to sleep, he calls for his mama every two minutes. Much like a scene from our household. This book has a profound effect on Mieja. After she is tucked in, she now hollers ‘Mamma’ instead of her usual, ‘Ammmmmaaaa’.

Goldilicious by Victoria Kann. Pinkalicious, a girl in pink flowing dress, ensemble complete with a crown and a wand. Her imaginary pet unicorn, Goldilicious . Her brother whom she pretends is a mean wandering wizard. Her parents whom she pretends to be mean sorcerers. Tea party pretend play. That is it. To be frank, every time I read it, I try hard not to frown or to be a spoil sport. But it is super duper hit with the girls.

My Working Mom by Peter Glassman, illustrated by Tedd Arnold. Now, this book, me likey mucho and I think it deserves a spot on Saffron Tree. So hop over to ST to read the full review.

Chula is now in to reading. If she sees print, she HAS to read it. It has become a basic need for her. So I leave the child to dress herself for school or bed, what does she do? She is sitting there and reading labels on her clothes. This led to her observation, “Made in China??!!! Hmmm…. It looks like the whole world is made in China.”

See I simply cannot resist 🙂
Email, comment by Friday, 4.00AM PST.

And the clue is……

Updated to add:

The answer is: THE GREAT INDIAN NOVEL by SHASHI THAROOR

The Print Lover nailed it. She says “Vyasa + Pillaiyar = Mahabaratha Twitter bird -> Shashi Tharoor?” And exactimo!

I have read Mahabaratha by many different authors and that was instrumental in me picking up this book. It took me a few pages to understand the allegory, but I was proud and pleased as plum that I did it all by myself without running to Wikipedia. Though I had to take a break from it I found it compelling enough to return to it. So far a good read.

So here is the song in the girls’ voice.

TisAGift2BSimple

I am reading currently.

Here is your clue and the condition is, YOU CANNOT GOOGLE.

Come on, be true to your heart.

====================================

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

====================================

Send your replies to me by email utbtkids@gmail.com.

You have till Jan 29, 2010 4.00AM PST

Edited to add

Law abiding citizens, the answer is

1984 by George Orwell

113 ppl have viewed this post. I get nada emails. So I take it tha ALL of you googled to find the answer. What honest citizens I say!!

It was business as usual at work. We had just put the younger children for their AM nap, the older ones were engaged in work. The loud noise made me think that there was action going on in the elementary upstairs. But it dawned on me with the sudden movement. Earthquake.

We did the usual emergency routine and thankfully we were able to return to the usual routine, if you could call it usual and go on about your routine.

4.1 is relatively small. Probably mother Earth just sighed, stretched or sniffed when compared to the wrath she has unleashed in many places. But something being with children changes the whole deal. Mind being a monkey jumps and leaps and leads you to places where you don’t want to be. Children, though they do not have enough life experiences to fear the what if, are pretty acute on latching on to adult emotions. For the rest of the day they were a bit off put.

I am with Chula and Mieja in the same campus. So a quick peak through the window was a HUGE blessing. I did not fear their safety, for they are in the best possible care. But just their smiling faces soothed me, chasing all the unspoken fears. As soon as I could, I called R and we touched base on our family’s emergency routine. He said, ‘I will come and get you and the kids.’ And we had a good laugh.

Technorati Tags: earthquake

Chula: Amma, tell me about Lebanon.
Me: Errr…Lebanon?
Chula: I want to know about Lebanon.
Me: Okay, why do you want to know about Lebanon?
Chula: Because, I don’t know about Lebanon. That is why I want to know about it.
(Told with a sigh, eyes rolling, hand shaking and intonation as if explaining it to Rainman)
Me: But I don’t know anything about Lebanon
Chula: Googal it amma.
Me: What it?
Chula: Googal it.
Me: What is google Chula?
Chula: It is something that lives in our computer and when we ask a question it tells us an answer.

So we know about Googal, inspite of not introducing Googal formally.

Technorati Tags: google