Rahul and Luffy read

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 ...

Epics have been written about brothers so it's surprising that a 20-ish page childrens' book captures the fundamental essence of brotherhood - we don't like sharing with one another, we fight over trivial things, we make up, and most importantly we are there for each other when needed. I absolutely loved reading A kite called Korika by Sharada Kolluru, illustrated by K P Muraleedharan . The story is just perfect and the colors are art/illustration/colors are vibrant and warm. I especially loved the sound-effects interjected into the story, which aren't obvious to someone who isn't a native Telugu speaker. I poked a lot of fun at Preeti when she tried to pronounce the sound-effects e.g. the sound that a bus makes as it is passing by or the sound of a bullock cart on a dirt road. P.S. This is another great recommendation from the Bookshelf Library. A good librarian knows whether or not they have the book you are interested in reading. A great librarian on the other ha...