Read-aloud through March - Day 9

At the end of our day, Kuhu picked 3 books to read... "Farmer Falgu goes on a trip", "My First Railway Journey" and "I really ABSOLUTELY must have glasses".


We love this Farmer Falgu's book. I was doubtful if Kuhu would know what silence means and why the farmer would want to go in search of it. But she said - त्याला शांतता हवीये म्हणून चाललाय तो मला हवी असते तशी !! Kuhu loves to make noise like Trot-Trot or Dum-Dum and also to be silent as Shhh... as we read. Yesterday she wanted me to sing the song the old man in the story was singing... Thanks to Cuddles and Reads that I knew what goes along with this book... we sang "yui hi chala chal rahi" and Dadda joined in too... It was fun. We then sat quite to listen every 'noise' we hear before sleep took over.

My First Railway Journey is a wordless picture book from NBT. Wonderfully captured emotions of that first journey, that tunnel... We loved watching it all and remembering what we have seen so far. Kuhu told me she has never seen a coolie... so next time we travel, we 're going to say a Hello to a coolie !

 Charlie and Lola are one of our favorites. We love their funny conversations.... I really ABSOLUTELY must have glasses is adorable. Now Kuhu wants a pair of glasses !

Read-aloud through March - Day 4

We read throughout the day yesterday... one in the morning while waiting for the school van, three in the evening with आजी and two at bedtime with mumma. I love when we can squeeze in reading while we do tons of other things. That way we read more and a variety of books...

We read "Tsomo & the momo" again in the morning. Kuhu's little friend Gia returned Mickey and Minnie board books ( Ballerina Minnie, Farmer Mickey and Mealtime fun) and since we hadn't read it for long, she rushed to her आजी to read while I finished my conference call. 

At bedtime, she wanted to read two books so I asked if we could read one English and one Marathi. Keeping that in mind, she picked - "The Duckling gets the cookie!?" and "गोड भेट".

I wrote about "Tsomo & the momo" and "The Duckling gets the cookie!?" here.

Mickey and Minnie board books are fun things that Mickey, Minnie and their friends do. These are short and simple fun stories.... something that Kuhu relates to.

"गोड भेट" was our pick from a recent book-fair. It is a Marathi translation of The Watermelon route (Author / Illustrator Quentin Greban) by Rama Hardikar. I personally love this book so a separate post on it coming soon....

Read-aloud through March - Day 1

Last year I edited the same post to maintain our reads. This year, however, I'll write one post everyday telling you what we read. 

So here we start......

Today we read मुखवटे(Masks), मोठी शाला(big school) by Madhuri Purandare. These are two of the six books from Yash series by the author. The series is about different experiences of a preschooler Yash. The author has captured the feelings of a preschooler wonderfully   Kids of that age connect with the stories as these are incidents that happen with them or around them everyday. The illustrations also done by the author are simple yet effective. The books are originally written in Marathi but I recently found English version and we loved that too. We love these books so much that whenever I ask what should I gift your friend, यशची बुक्स (Yash books) is Kuhu's response. Here is Kuhu showing today's reads -

Read-aloud through March - Day 2

Yesterday we got our monthly package from Little Reader's Nook. The theme for the month was food. Kuhu was excited to see her gift and wanted to read it... So all the four books were our reads for Day 2 : Balu's Basket / बालू की टोकरी, The scarecrows on parade, Tsomo and the momo & The Duckling gets the cookie!?

Balu's Basket by Chitra Soundar is bilingual book with a beautiful story about Balu, his basket and how he fills it up. Illustrations by Uttara Sivadas are colorful and bright. We loved this book for the simple story line and taking my city-kid to a wonderful village setting.

Why should scarecrows always look scary and ugly? What if they looked pretty and went on a parade rather than standing still in the field? The scarecrows on parade by Shamim Padamsee takes us on a scarecrows parade with Gauri. Nice story with bright illustrations by Tanaya Vyas. Kuhu loved making me to show how a scarecrow should look just as Gauri's Ma showed her in the story !

Tsomo and the momo by Nivedita Subramaniam is a delightful story of Tsomo and biiig momo that she wants. The illustrations are very soft and lively. Kuhu wanted me to make a momo for her just like Tsomo and sing a song like Tsomo's mom. :-)

The Duckling gets the cookie!? by Mo Willems - "Oh that pigeon is back !" Kuhu exclaimed as soon as she saw the book... She surely was expecting some rant from the pigeon through the story and she was not disappointed at all. When we finished, she asked - मी "politely" मागितलं तर देशील का ? Oh man... how can I even say no to this??

This monthly package came with a Little Chef activity - assemble food cards for different dishes.  Kuhu and I enjoyed it too...

Book Review - Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen / Kevin Hawkes

I got this book in Best Books deals group on Facebook. The title and cover looked interesting and I picked it up. My impression was it was about a lion who loved to read or someone who would talk about books.

The book is about a lion who comes into a library and is allowed to stay on if he does not break the rules of the library (no roaring.. no running..). He goes on to help everyone - from children to visitors to librarian and enjoys the story hour. What does he do when he wants to help a friend but the library staff doesn't understand and breaks the rule? What's punishment and who punishes him?

The illustrations are the highlight of the book. They are soft and warm each one conveying the emotions wonderfully at different points in the story.They build the excitement as the story unfolds. This is one of the books that I didn't have to translate to my 3yr old in Marathi ... pictures said it all.

I liked the book for the brilliant illustrations and story that talks about going by the rules and being responsible for what you do. Every time I read it I discover something new that the story has to tell.

It is a wonderfully entertaining read for young and old.