Why Every Library Should Stock Shabnam Minwalla's When Jiya Met Urmila

-

Shabnam Minwalla's early chapter book, When Jiya Met Urmila, is one of the best books released from Duckbill's stable this year. The entertaining book is centred around friendship cutting across classes.   This book is also a great tool for parents and teachers to highlight and address many other neglected issues children need to be aware of. There are three reasons why every library needs to stock this book:
                                                          
 1)This well written book is an ideal resource book for all the kids who spout their creative 
writing lessons about  "inciting action" and "climax" but don't know how to execute it. 
Minwalla's book follows all the elements of storytelling in the right measures. 
2)It is a wonderful tool to discuss invasion of privacy and digital laws.  In a world obsessed 

with viral videos and images, the lines are getting blurred.  Can children be 

photographed/video graphed without parental/school's consent? Is trespassing private 

property punishable by law?
3)This book also creates  awareness about elderly abuse. Often children end up playing 



pranks on the elderly for fun and peer pressure.  They are simply not sensitised about the 



challenges faced by the elderly. There are not many books in middle grade fiction which 



have put the spotlight on this issue.  When Jiya Met Urmila is a fun read for kids.

 Check out When Jiya Met Urmila(Hole Books)

 (PS:  I am an  affiliate of Amazon. When you buy the book through the above hyperlink, I will receive a small percentage of sales which helps me run Kahani Takbak, a platform to promote Indian books, author and illustrators.)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interview with L.M.Kadu( Bala sahitya Akademi award for Marati(2017)

-
Image
The latest recipient of the Bala Sahitya Puraskar for Marathi Literature(2017), Laxman Mahipati Kadu(L.M.Kadu) is a farmer, illustrator, and an author.  The esteemed national recognition has been bestowed upon him for his book, Kharicha Vata( Rajhans Publications). Published in 2013, the book is a middle grade novel la which deals with friendship of two boys, a squirrel and the displacement of families after the construction of a dam in a village.  The Bala Sahitya Akademi award is the fourth award for the book of over 200 pages.  The premise for the story came from Mr Kadu’s life.  It was while he was pursuing his primary schooling in Panshet that a dam came up in the vicinity.  The government provided land to the residents for resettlement. He moved to Pune where he finished his schooling and pursued his love for art by graduating through Abhinav Kalamandir, Pune.  It was in his youth that he met a few likeminded people and got involved with Anthabharati, a NGO in
Read more

Tamil poet for little children: Kuzha Kathiresan

-
Image
This  © article was created exclusively for the November 2016 issue of Kahani Takbak, a newsletter for children authors in India.)  Poet of little children: Kuzha Kathiresan, Bala Sahitya Puraskar winner 2016                                                                                 He passes off as a bureaucrat with his quiet demeanor and gentle voice. It is  only when he settles down  in his office surrounded by bookshelves that he shows his real talent by reciting poems close to his heart. Kuzha Kathiresan, winner of Bala Sahitya Academi award (2016) for total contribution to children’s literature is a rare gem in the world of children’s poetry.  His adventure with poetry started in his late teens while he was pursuing his graduation in tamil literature.  He began his career as a manager for a publishing house learning all aspects of publishing.  He also started taking poetry seriously and participated in poetry fo
Read more

Festival Stories Through The year : Guest Blog by Rachna Chhabria

-
Image
Festival Stories Through The Year  is Rachna Chhabria's first release with Harper Collins (India). Rachna shares her experiences while writing this book. Rachna Chhabria is a columnist with The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle. She writes for many newspapers, her stories have been published in several anthologies. She is the author of Lazy Worm Goes on a Journey, The Lion Who Wanted to Sing and Bunny in Search of a Name. In the second week of July, Harper Collin’s Children’s Editor Tina Narang emailed me asking if I was willing to work on a book based on festivals. Tina was my editor at Scholastic. I was initially hesitant as this was a non-fiction project and also because of the time crunch, I had to submit the book by the end of the month. Nevertheless, I took it up as a challenge. After brainstorming, Tina and I decided to create a group of characters who would celebrate all the festivals. Luckily for me, two years back I had written an article on few festivals for an O
Read more