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.

Owl Babies is another book that Luffy didn't read but I have to write about it because it is absolutely mesmerizing. It's a very simple story - three owl babies are waiting for their mother and in the end their mother returns. Duh. It's a childrens' story so I hope it's not a spoiler to you that their mother returns in the end. The text/words are good but the art was just captivating. I'm at a lack of words to describe just how beautiful the art, the coloring, the incredible use of negative space, the owls' deep red eyes, and more! Heck, I felt like I could feel how fluffy the owlets were as I ran my fingers across the pages! We ended up picking other books over this book last Sunday because I'm not sure how much Luffy will appreciate the art. P.S. I might sound like a broken record at this point but I absolutely love the work that the Bookshelf Library are doing in Hyderabad, India. They have painstakingly collected childrens' books over the years...

I think I started following False Knees on Instagram sometime around 2020/2021. I started loving his work during the Inktober challenge in 2021 or Falsetober as he likes to call it. Hop! by Joshua/False Knees is the collection of comic strips that he drew during October 2021. I don't know if I am misinterpreting his work but I think it's the story of two friends. The first friend is afraid to live his life because he ran into a bunch of problems. But after a crazy day the first friend is ready to take a leap and start living his life again. I've been wanting to read this (and other books by False Knees) to Luffy for many months now and he finally obliged yesterday! He liked looking at the crows and their antics as they made their way through the city. I loved that I got to share one of the most cherished books in my library with him. If you can't buy the book, you can read the comic strips from his website for free - starting from 1st Oct 2021 . P.S. I think the co...

Luffy didn't read this book but I still want to include it because I loved it. I read this book at The Bookshelf Library a few weeks back but Preeti didn't think it was age appropriate for Luffy yet. I read it again last Sunday and I still like it. The book revolves around five "ugly" animals, and how they band together because of their ugliness. In the end, their children greet them and shower love on them, telling them how beautiful they are. The Ugly Five is by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Axel Scheffler , whose work we have written about multiple times in the past. See for example The Gruffalo or the Snail on the Whale . And this was one of those rhymy books by Julia Donaldson so it was fun to sing it out loud. P.S. I hope Luffy picks this up and reads it at some point in the future - not for the lesson on physical beauty - but for the simpler lesson on the animal kingdom and evolution!

I picked Tikki Tikki Tembo two weeks back from the Bookshelf Library as one of the two books for Luffy. I picked it because I found it interesting and I wanted to read it to him. Luffy showed no interest whatsoever in the book during the week. A day before when we were supposed to return the books (6 days after borrowing them), I read the book to him in a rush, just to "check off" the book. Funnily enough, he liked it. I was unable to return the books that weekend so we ended up reading the book multiple times last week. Even after returning the book, luffy still walks around from time to time saying "Tikki Tikki Tembo ...". P.S. In case you didn't know, you can borrow books from the Internet Archive. For example, here is Tikki Tikki Tembo on the Internet Archive .

I don't have a gambling addiction but second-hand bookstores will likely bankrupt me. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Axel Scheffler is one of the second-hand books that I bought at a book store next door. You know, the place  I usually visit to get a printout for 10 Rupees but end up spending 100s to 1000s of Rupees on books. The sea snail slithered all over the rock And gazed at the sea and the ships in the dock. And as she gazed she sniffed and sighed. “The sea is deep and the world is wide! How I long to sail,” Said the tiny snail. I think this is the fourth or fifth book by Julia Donaldson that we have read and it's a little surprising how versatile an author she is. And unlike some of the earlier books, this is a rhyming book and it sounds great to read aloud. This isn't something Luffy is capable of doing or appreciates us doing at the moment but that day isn't too far. I'll have to start looking for Indian books or books in local...

I came back home after traveling out of city and the first thing I notice in our house are a couple of second-hand books from the book store nearby. I knew they were second-hand books because I had already come across one of the books (which I didn't w ant to buy) when I combed through the childrens' books section in the book store. The good pick was Night Monkey Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Lucy Richards . Julia Donaldson should be familiar name to the readers of this blog. Good book. Luffy likes it and finds parts of it funny. An interesting example of evolution from the book is - the "night monkey" wonders why the moths were wearing make up, to which the "day monkey" responds that they're butterflies. Butterflies operate during the day and because it is bright during the day, it makes sense for them to expend energy creating elaborately colorful wings (helps with mating). On the other hand, moths operate at night and because it'...

I don't remember which happened first - did we do something that made Luffy interested in trains or was he interested in trains and we reinforced by buying him railway-themed books and toys. We did travel a few times via train when he was younger though so maybe that was how the fascination with trains started. That naturally led to us (likely Preeti) buying him a Thomas' Train Stories book and luckily for him, one of Preetis' friends gifted Luffy a Thomas & Percy train set. We never ever put the entire toy railway set together - he is more than hapy playing with the Thomas and Percy engines. And it's surprising how relevant this book still is to our lives. The book has been around for more than an year, if i remember correctly, but even as early as last week, we were going through it and reading through some of the stories. And for Preeti and me, some of our funniest memories with Luffy are linked to this book. Like for example the "Thomas and Percy and the D...

Are You A Monkey: A Tale of Animal Charades by Marine Rivoal caught my eye last month at the second-hand book shop next door to where we live. Painted in a stylish and saturated color palette of Pantones, this unusual book will engage children in considering animal behavior and characteristics. Even the publisher calls the book "unusual" because the colors are just absolutely mesmerizing and like nothing I have seen before. Each page has a good hook to grab and retain Luffy's attention. Marine Rivoals' work is absolutely mesmerizing. Alas, most of her work seems to be in French. P.S. I absolutely love the fact that artists and creators can still surprise me with their art. Even after reading hundreds (close to thousands) of graphic novels and comic books, I am yet to come across two authors whose styles are exactly the same. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised about this. Maybe if I had a basic appreciation of the arts during my college years, I wouldn't be sur...

One of my colleagues at my previous employer (Enthought) had just become a father. When the new parents brought the baby to the office, the gift from the company included these books. It makes perfect sense because the org was made up of folks from science and engineering backgrounds, most of them Ph.Ds. And I absolutely fell in love with the books.   Soon after (within an year), a cousin of mine had a baby boy. They live in the U.S and they were visiting India for a short vacation. I wasn't sure when I would meet them again so I bought them these books. Everyone looked at me like I was an alien. The books say that they're for babies but I think they're actually for adults who want to read to babies. I was happy about the gift and I hoped that my cousin and her son would appreciate them sometime in the future. So when Luffy was born, one of the first things I bought was these books. And we've been reading to Luffy from these books since he opened his eyes. For a very l...

Let me start by writing down everything that's on the torn cover of the second-hand book I have. Puss in Boots: The Adventures of That Most Enterprising Feline Written by Mr. Philip Pullman Illustrated by Mr. Ian Beck Starring Puss himself, and featuring: One Ogre, Two Ghouls, One Aged and Respected Hermit, A Beautiful Princess (Daughter of His Most Gallic Majesty), The King of France, And of course Jacques, the Hero