Rahul and Luffy read

Baby, Let's Eat! by Stephan Lomp is one of Luffys first books. If I remember correctly, Preeti bought him this book because he was in a phase of life where he would tear and/or eat everything put in his hands. Thankfully, this book is built specifically to handle that kind of treatment from toddlers. There's nothing special about the content but the colors are vibrant and attractive - which is what is most important to a toddler. So if you thought there was no point in buying books for toddlers, think again.

Claudia Flandoli (the Illustrator) is an ex-colleagues' partner, which is how I came across Doctor Li and the Crown-wearing Virus, written by Francesca Cavallo . The first-part of the book talks about the Doctor Li Wenliang , an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, who was one of the first to alert the medical community about COVID-19 infections. He sadly succumbed to COVID-19 himself. We've read the book to Luffy countless times. Luffy was conceived when COVID-19 infections were still common. In fact, Preeti got infected with COVID-19 after one of our hospital visits. We have no idea how much of the book he understood but he does go around saying Coronavirus from time to time so maybe some of it stuck in his head. This is one of the few non-fiction books that we read to him and I hope he picks up more in the future. If it helps, here's a read-aloud version of the book on YouTube .

Emergency! by Margaret Mayo, Illustrated by Alex Ayliffe is one of the books we picked up at the Kukdukoo childrens fest recently. You might have noticed a theme in the books we've shared so far - vehicles. Luffy has gotten more and more interested in vehicles over the past 6 months so this book fits perfectly into the theme. Each page is dedicated to one particular kind of emergency vehicle. It's a simple book to read and at the end, there's a zoomed out view of all of the emergency vehicles "in their homes" at night. It's surprising what you find in the second hand book bin if you have a good gut instinct and you have time. I think we came across at least one other book by the Illustrator Alex Ayliffe at the second-hand book store but we didn't pick it up.

We liked Kukdukoo fest in Hyderabad last year so we booked our tickets for the event as soon as the tickets opened. It's a multi-day event but we barely had the energy to spend more than 4 hours there - last year and this year. The event is hyper-consumerist and the commercial entities who sponsor the event are selling something or the other to kids of all ages (and their parents). I felt it last year but it was very clear this year. Companies/People were trying to sell healthy food, eye-catching clothes, tech-savvy toys, local culture-inspired board games, and so on. One of the biggest stalls was a company that provides financial advice to parents on how to save for their childrens' education. The other big stall was a private school that likely costs a ton of money. We revisited the event just because we picked up a ton of good books at the Scholastic popup book store and we were hoping for the same. But alas, we only picked up one book from the Scholastic book store. The ot...

Last Monday, Luffy and I were roaming around Bengaluru. After an hour or so at the Lalbagh , we took an auto to checkout the books (and eat) at Champaca book store . I've been wanting to visit Champaca for more than an year now but after getting into the auto, i realized that Champaca was closed on Monday (likely because they are open on Sunday). We asked the auto driver to make a last minute change and drop us off at Church Street instead. To checkout Blossom book house instead. Blossom book house is a Bengaluru landmark and another book store that I've been wanting to visit for more than an year. We didn't spend a long time at the book store but we still picked up 5+ books across the four floors (not sure if there are more) of the store. The haul is split evenly - three books for me and three for Luffy. It's okay. He doesn't mind. All of my books are his books anyway. P.S. Next time you buy a book in India, please use a book store like Blossom or Champaca . Blos...

Preeti, Luffy, and I visited a friend of Preetis' a few days back. He's a Kannadiga and Dugga (published by Pratham Books) caught my eye as I was browsing through his stack of books. It was translated to Kannadiga but it's a wordless book so the only translations were the front matter and the back matter :D It's a short and beautiful book about the life of a stray dog, how its life is disrupted by an accident, and how she is nursed back to health by a kind person. I read it to Luffy and as usual, he focused on the autos and other motor vehicles in the book instead of the dog and its antics. You can read Dugga for free on Storyweaver, the Pratham Books digital platform . P.S. I coincidentally met someone from Pratham Books the day before I read this book. "A book in every child’s hand." is their mission. They are a not-for-profit publisher so support them if you can. Also, did I say that all of their content is available under a Creative Commons license and...

Woven by Joshua/False Knees is the third iteration of the Inktober challenge by Joshua that actually happened in November 2024. Like before, if you can't buy this book, you can read it from the False Knees Web comic, starting 1st November 2023 . I love the fact that False Knees experiments with the format every year - and for 2023 he used crayons of only two colors for his work! He actually talked about challenges that he was facing when self-publishing this work because he had to touch up the hand-drawn pages digitally before he was able to print/publish them. You should follow his Instagram page to get an inside view of the process. Venturing into speculation again, the story is about an artist who loses interest in making things but thankfully regains it by the end. The last panel is honestly tear-jerking to me at times with the quote "what should I make today?". P.S. I am eagerly waiting for Joshua to self-publish the Falsevember 2024 work.

We picked up a couple of Telugu books from the Bookshelf Library a couple of weeks back - one of which was Mahagiri , a Telugu translation of an English book of the same name , published by Children's Book Trust. Luffy liked reading it - but I skipped a couple of pages from the book where Mahagiri (the elephant) is tortured (prodded and stabbed) by its handler because he wasn't doing as the handler was saying. I'm afraid Luffy is a little too young for me to talk to him about humans harming animals and going into the details about why the man did it, even if he apologized for it later. I mentioned this to the librarian at the Bookshelf Library and she laughed because she had done the same a few times in the past when she hosted read-out-loud sessions. But to my surprise she said that the kids had always caught her, prompting in an awkward but necessary conversation with the children. The book gave me the opportunity to remind Luffy that he saw an elephant in the past - at ...

Spores is the second Falsetober comic by Joshua/False Knees, drawn and published during October 2022. I might be misreading the author but I think it's a heartwarming story of individuals coming together and finally communicating with another meaningfully, instead of only being able to speak to their kind. Like the previous Falsetober comic, if you're unable to buy this, you can read the comics for free online - starting on 1st October 2022 .  P.S. Spores was nominated for an Eisner Award ( among 82 nominees ) and if you know comics, you know how big of a deal it is just being nominated for an Eisner Award.

We are big fans of Karadi Tales over here and we loved reading Cat, Come Back by Lavanya Karthik, Illustrated by Ayeshe Sadr & Ishaan Dasgupta . It's a simple book but it's our first "accordion"-style book. Ayesha and Ishaan do a amazing job of blending the panels seamlessly, which is especially important because of the "accordion"-style. Not much else to write here. P.S. This book, like a lot of other books I've written about on the blog so far, were borrowed from the Bookshelf Library in Hyderabad, India. P.P.S. I'm happy that the Bookshelf Library is helping me discover first-class childrens' books from India.