Dosti aur Mauj-Masti (Veera and the Farm Animals) by Aino Havukainen and Sami Toivonen

Preeti picked up a Hindi childrens' book on Sunday from the Bookshelf library - Dosti aur Mauj-Masti (Celebrating the Girl-child), a Hindi translation of Veera and the Farm Animals by Aino Havukainen & Sami Toivonen. I'm writing about the book not because it's an amazing book that all kids should read but because it highlights the differences children experience in urban living vs rural living.

The book shows us the experience that Tatu and Patu have as they visit Veera at their Farm. They get to meet a dog, a cat, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and finally cows. Tatu and Patu are awestruck at the farm because they have never interacted with farm animals before. For example, they don't understand how cows are milked, and they are incredibly proud of themselves when they finally milk a few drops from a cow.

Preeti and Luffy found the book interesting - because they have both spent time living with livestock. In Himachal, Preetis' family has multiple cows and Preeti (and Luffy) have experience milking cows. Their neighbors have sheep and one of our favorite videos is luffy playing with a baby sheep in his lap. There are a few who keep chickens in their village but they interacted with chickens, rabbits. cows, and buffalo at our recent visit to the Akshayakalpa farm near Hyderabad.

As someone who had never set foot on a farm most of my life (from what I can remember), the time I spent at my in-laws house in Himachal was bewildering. I couldn't believe what a cabbage looked like growing in the field - it looked straight out of science fiction to me. I'm happy that Luffy is growing up closer to nature than I ever did and he has a better appreciation for where he gets his food from than I ever did.

If you're interested in helping your children experience nature, you should consider doing an Akshayakalpa farm visit - they do farm visits in Bengaluru (biggest), Hyderabad, Chennai and we loved the day we spent at their Hyderabad farm. Sid's farm also has farm visits apparently but I can't vouch for them because we've been Akshayakalpa users for the past one and a half years.

P.S. I'm not sure what the "Celebrating the Girl-child" part of the book is but it looks like the Tatu and Patu series of books are incredibly popular and translated to 20+ languages, which might have been one of the reasons why this book exists.