At the Champaca children’s events, we have been exploring common themes in children’s books like animals, family and personal identity. In September, the author Vaishnavi Giri read from her book Paro of the Sundarbans which is about a little mud skipper and her relationship with her home, the Sundarbans. Author Anshumaan Sathe did a dramatic reading of his book The Many Colours of Anshu, which explores gender identity in children. This weekend, we will go on a trip to Mars with Menaka Raman and her latest book How to Reach Mars and Other Impossible Things on women scientists, asking questions and as the book says, other impossible things. We hope you will join us!
Authors Anushmaan Saathe and Vaishnavi Giri at Champaca.
Picture Credit: Nayanika and Shakti
Poetry in the Library
Poetry belongs to all of us; everyone can read poems, make up poems or share poems with others. Though we often talk about poetry being dense or difficult, poems are able to present complicated or challenging ideas in a way that we can carry around in our heads. They help us ask questions about the world, how we use words, and who we are.
-Michael Rosen
We often think about this beautiful quote from Michael Rosen, and the ways in which poetry can help us explore ideas and express knotty, difficult parts of our minds and emotions. We found some poetry books for your children to read aloud.
Tickle Me, Don't Tickle Me: And Other Poems for Magnificent, Turbo-Loaded, Triple-Charged Children by Jerry Pinto
Why is a hamster a hamster? What happens to children who dig their noses? What is a question? This first book of poetry by Jerry Pinto answers these questions and more in happy poems, serious poems and poems that will leave you laughing on the floor!
Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems by June Crebbin
This collection spans well-known poems across time and context, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Michael Rosen. The poems deals with familiar themes such as playtime, meal times, bedtime, family and animals.
Michael Rosen’s Book of Very Silly Poems By Michael Rosen
In this collection of subversive verses with a twist, Rosen riffs on popular rhymes: "We three kings of Orient are/One in a taxi, one in a car/One on a scooter, blowing his hooter/Smoking a big cigar”. Separated into sections such as Festering Food, Amazing Animals, and BIG Boasts, this delightful volume of poetry is a reminder that poetry doesn’t have to be heavy and serious.
Little Poems for Tiny Ears by Lin Oliver
Can poetry be introduced to babies? This delightful collection of twenty-three poems, written in a playful and rhythmic style, celebrates the everyday things that fascinate little ones, such as playing peekaboo, banging pots and pans, splashing at bath time, and cuddling at bedtime.
Book of Beasts-An A to Z of Rhyming Bestiary by M Krishnan
Written by writer, artist and naturalist M Krishnan, these quirky poems are accompanied by gorgeous illustrations and interspersed with nuggets of scientific facts. They are a fun way of introducing the alphabet, poetry and the natural world to your little one!
A Slice of History…Telephone Booth Libraries of England
There was a time when anyone who visited England sent home a postcard - with a picture of a guard with a weird hat in front of Buckingham Palace, or a map of the London underground or a picture of a red telephone booth. All three were iconic pictures representing the UK. The guard is still there in his weird hat, the underground is as busy as ever but the red booths no longer have a telephone. Instead, in hundreds of places, the booths stand proud and straight with shelves of books inside them. When the town libraries were closed because of COVID-19, the red telephone booths with books came to people’s aid. It did what it had always done: connected and comforted people!
A red telephone booth library in London. Picture Credit: www.nbcnews.com