Tag: library

Imaginating Nothing

 

Nothing Good!

“How was your day?”

“Good!”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” 

For years, this was the standard response I got. It takes grit and determination to get past that answer every day for years. My school’s motto was Never Give In for a reason. I plunge on. “So when is Dr Seuss week? Should we buy a Dr Seuss hat?” (We still have the hat somewhere I think.) “It’s read-across-America week right? What should we read for our read-a-thon?”

You see? The thing is, I cannot imagine their school to be a place where nothing happens. It can’t be when they are making diasporas of dinosaur habitats, writing book reports of The Magic Tree House, learning about exotic animals – supposedly in preparation for their field trip to the zoo, and making art so their little fingers look like they dipped their hands into a rainbow. 

Yet. Nothing and Good. Good for Nothing answers both.

Then, something wonderful happened. 

Literature Lives

I started volunteering in elementary school classrooms. Sometimes, as a volunteer teaching experimental science, other times as a connoisseur introducing fine books of literature. 

“Oh! You’re a Booklegger lady now? Cool Amma! I used to love when they came to school.” said the son one day when I told him that I had signed up to become a Booklegger volunteer at the local library. 

“You knew about this program?” I said, stunned.

“Yeah, of course! It was always fun when the Booklegger people came.” He said.

“All those years I asked you, how was your day? And you never said a thing!” I said, somewhat stung at this omission. The children knew I would have loved to hear about volunteers from the library coming to introduce new books to them. Especially when I had to beg them to read books other than Captain Underpants and Dog Man all the time. He shrugged, and said “Eh!”, good-naturedly and moved on.

Nothing – by Michael Molinet

One day, I read the book, NOTHING – By Michael Molinet

“You have to read this. “ I said pressing the book to the son as he pranced into the house after biking with his friends one evening. 

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Michael-Molinet/dp/1733354840/ – NOTHING by Michael Molliner Book 

You see? The book even starts off with the exact sequence I wrote about earlier. How was your day? Fine! What did you do? Nothing.

The book captures the spirit behind the word ‘Nothing’ the way the son says it so perfectly, it is like the author has been around watching the son imaginate.

Imaginating Nothing

He loves to imaginate. A verb he coined himself and a word that has become a household word in the nourish-n-cherish home. It means actively imagining scenarios and living them. I know he fights off pirates and takes on armies when he leaps off the bed to the carpeted floor. The fake swords may not survive an actual duel on the battlefield, but the cushions in the house don’t stand a chance! 

So many times, the only thing that has stopped me from running out of the house fearing an earthquake, is the fact that earthquakes are felt from the earth, not from the bedroom upstairs. When his friends are over to play, the Richter scale shivers and stutters. 

Please head on over to the book to see what Nothing means when your child says they did ‘Nothing’ all day. I assure you it is more exciting than anything any of us do.

If only the Good days on which we do Nothing are half as exciting!

The Joys of Library Browsing

Yap Yap, Chat Chat, Chop Chop!

“Enough yapping! Chop! Chop!” I said trying to herd the children out. We had worked hard to carve this time out for ourselves and I was excited. We talked the whole way there. Or rather, they yapped, and I listened. I can’t say I understood- but the number of phrases and words that seem to make no sense seems to increase over time. Age really is a funny thing. It takes everything mutable, garbles it with time, and presents a slightly unintelligible version to you.

“Anyway – excited?”

“Yes Mother!” They chanted. How one phrase can hold both a dutiful and a sarcastic response I don’t know, but that, right there is another thing the young seem to have down. Sigh.

Library Browsing

It seemed like a long time since we’d had a children’s book read-a-thon, and so off we were, to the library. We meandered through the library shelves each of us taking our time, wondering how long it would take us to find things once the reshelving was done.

Library browsing is one of the most under-rated pleasures of the world. We each came back with a stash of books in our hands, and picked out a sunny nook in which to curl up and read for just a few minutes before heading back home to hole up in our home.

If we run out of words – By Felicita Sala

One of my favorite books from this haul happened to be – If we run out of words – By Felicita Sala

Version 1.0.0

It is an innocent earnest worry of a child’s turned into a book. What if you run out of words to speak?

The increasingly exaggerated lengths to which the father would go to find words makes it a sweet story and finishes on a predictable, but heart-tugging phrase that remains unspoken. That is how you bring a smile to the face of children and adults reading the book. Well done Felicita Sala!

When there are words everywhere, words can be swords, pinpricks, thumps just as much as they can be balms of kindness and encouragement. I closed the book, and realized that fears, worries and anxieties come in so many forms. Speaking about them to the ones who matter is the key, says every wise one, but that remains the most difficult thing in the world. For don’t words spoken have to be heard?

The children (one a teenager and the other a young adult) picked up the book, and eloquently summed the book up “Duh! Bruh!”

Cerulean Chatter

“Ta-da-da! Let’s go!” I said dramatically closing the laptop and toppling the relaxed summer vacationers from their comfortable positions on the couch.

“Ouch! Must you really be this dramatic?”, said the son, who is fast learning to use the tone of a teenager in these matters.

I said with my hands firmly upon my hips , “YES! I have a long week-end approaching and I intend to enjoy it. Come on now!” 

A low moan like a donkey stuck with its foot in a can was heard, and I turned towards the distressing noise. It was the daughter. I was surprised at this. “I thought you have been pandering on about that Cerulean princess book all week! Don’t you want to go to the library?”

“I told you! It isn’t available in the library yet.”

I ran an amused look over her appearance. She looked like an indoor plant with no desire to be planted outdoors. The child’s loose clothing, lazy groans, and the fact that she had made lunch for the family seeing how busy I was that morning melted my heart, and I said, “Fine! Either you come to the library with us, or you read Persepolis. Your choice.”

She willingly picked the latter, and I wondered why I had not resorted to this technique before. I have been begging her to read the book for at least a year now, and have been met with vague shrugs and the you-don’t-know-teen-taste mantra. It was very perplexing. I knew she would enjoy the book. The comic strips had humor, striking visuals, and a highly engaging take on the history of Iran. I knew her women’s rights part of the brain would itch and she would want to find out more.

Persepolis – By Marjane Satrapi

So, off the son & I went. We were celebrating freedom and these long summer evenings seemed just the way to go about it. We grazed along the aisles, less leisurely than we’d have liked, but very glad to be there all the same. I found that book on the Cerulean skies or whatever it is the daughter was looking for, and was wondering how to show her my smugness at finding it in the library when a text chime interrupted us. 

“I finished it finally!”

“Sooo…..what did you think of it? Interesting that it took you less than an hour!”

“Something tells me you look smug right now. It was very good.”

I grinned in spite of myself. If I looked smug – what of it? Life doesn’t often give us the chance to feel that way.

That evening on a walk, we talked of this and that before we meandered back to Persepolis. 

“Ever wondered why the book was called Persepolis?” said the husband. She shrugged, and we gave her the little secret: Iran was known as Persia. The Persian empire, a grand old civilization etc.

She stopped in her tracks, and said, “Oh! That makes so much sense now. I mean not just for this book, but a ton of other stuff just clicks now. I always wondered about references to Persian this and Persian that in songs and stuff.”

I pressed into action. 

“What is it with teenagers not accepting our life’s wisdom huh? If you had read Persepolis before, you could’ve been armed with this superior knowledge – just saying. You know? We were perfectly angelic children, who listened to everything our parents said!” I said.

She chuckled and said, “You do realize paati and thaatha (grandma and grandpa) are just a WhatsApp message away and are always willing to dish the dirt on you right?”

I laughed and changed tracks. “By the way. Please be ready to eat your hat once again. I found the Cerulean Princess book in the library.”

She turned and giggled. I saw the book you picked out. It isn’t the one I was looking for. The one you got is the fourth and last installment in a series. I cannot read that just because you saw Cerulean in the title!”

Huh! How many new fiction books in the teen section would have the word Cerulean in them?

The sky above was looking beautiful. The sun would set soon ushering in a whole plethora of colors. “Never mind then. The sky looks beautiful, and we can resume our chatter under the cerulean skies!”, I said and laughed.