Book review: Cinderella Ate my Daughter

I would like to thank Utbtkids for introducing me to this wonderful book.

Consider this. A cousin, who is a parent to three girls aged 12, 8 and 3, has always picked up girlie stuff for her daughters. Pink, frilly dresses, tutus, barbies, disney/barbie toys, dresses, fashion accessories, all the latest disney/barbie movies/dolls' houses, barbie add-ons, barbie UNO cards(??), decor in all shades of pink- baby pink, magenta, fuschia, crimson, carmine, cerise, rose...you name it. Even hot pink cakes for every birthday. Bratz stuff, shiny lip gloss and nail polish (for these age groups??) - such pride on the mother's face when she recounts her children's obsession with dressing up and hair-dressing! I am often chided for not getting all the pinky-pink stuff for my daughter, that I should lighten up and let 'a girl be a girl'! She is welcome to have her opinion, of course! Not for me, though.

Things are made more difficult by the burgeoning in-your-face hard-sell of all things pink. Or rather all things stereotypical. Parents, beware. The people to decide what your kid plays with, how s/he plays, how s/he dresses are not you, but commercial establishments who have invested big money in the business of deciding this for you. So much so, that sometimes there isn't any choice in the matter.

In her book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein (see blogroll on the right side for her wonderful blog) discusses this wide-scale commercialisation of gender stereotypes, the messages it passes on to the hapless, impressionable children, (of both gender) the long-reaching effects of this stereotyping, and the way this industry is fed by the hopes and aspirations of every parent who buys into it.

Pic courtesy flipkart

Cinderella Ate My Daughter
dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture
Written by Peggy Orenstein
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers

Gender stereotyping is not a new thing. It has not begun with the culture of all things girlie. It is as old as civilisation- maybe even from before civilisation. Gender stereotyping has its roots in biology. A woman can give birth to and suckle her baby, a man cannot. So the woman stayed at home to take care of the baby, ensuring the propogation of humans, while the man ensured survival in terms of providing for food and protection.

However, what began as a matter of convenience and an equitable division of labour that worked wonderfully well for the survival of humans, has evolved slowly but surely into something that denies human beings their most fundamental right- of being humans. The world gets divided into the masculine and the feminine, each strait-jacketed into our notions of what is right or wrong for each.

In an out-and-out patriarchial society like ours, this has always featured big. We already have a million ways to perpetuate gender stereotypes. We do not need another way to achieve the same.

Good girls don't do this, they don't do that- so many social restrictions based on gender- Oh, yes, there are these for boys, too. They don't have it easier. Real boys don't cry, real boys cannot play with dolls...I could go on. Resulting in aggression as the only acceptable emotion for them to show- crippling them emotionally!

Paradoxically, the girlie culture has its roots in the feminist movement. Barbie, in fact, was introduced in 1959 as a symbol of feminist aspirations(throwing off the shackles of domesticity), and was then targeted towards teenagers. Soon, though, Barbie, (astronaut, scientist, doctor, etc. in her initial avatars) and her successors were no longer a sign of empowerment- there was a definate element of sexualisation coming in. Girls who played with them were getting younger and younger and more impressionable by the day- of course putting the dolls off the radar for the original older age groups. Making it that much more difficult to contain and deflect the subliminal messages that were being sent to these children.

A short-sighted view of the princess/barbie culture provides a vision of empowerment. After all, our kids think it is so 'cool' to emulate the way Barbie dresses. So 'cool' to know about the latest in celebrity activities. Hannah Montana becomes a goddess. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus,...the latest pop icon become role models. Not yet 3-yr-olds aspire to be like these idols. Ordinariness, simplicity is seen as totally 'uncool.' After all, who wants to be an old-fashioned so-and-so? So stereotypical!

Commercialisation, of course, demands that where there is a demand, there has to be a supply- so that profit can be made. After all, that is how it works in a capitalist set-up. Crass comercialisation takes it a step further, and feeds on the social weaknesses that come disguised as another step in empowerment.

'The pursuit of physical perfection was recast as a source - often the source - of young women's "empowerment." Rather than freedom from traditional constraints, then, girls now were free to "choose" them. Yet the line between "get to" and "have to" blurs awfully fast. Even as new and professional opportunities unfurl before (the girls), so does the path that encourages them to equate identity with image, self-expression with appearance, feminity with performance, pleasure with pleasing, and sexuality with sexualisation.'

... by the time they are teenagers, the girls (quoting a study by Deborah Tolman, a Professor of human sexuality studies at the City University of New York) respond to questions about how their bodies feel - questions about sexuality or desire - by talking about how their bodies look. They say something like, "I felt like I looked good." Orenstein says, "My fear for my daughter, then, is not that she will someday act in a sexual way; it is that she will learn to act sexually against her own self-interest."  Something seen in victims of low self-esteem, and not a sign of empowerment.

Sounds eerily like something the manusmriti has advocated for the female half of the population long long ago, doesn't it? We have plenty of our own misplaced ideas and beliefs to correct without complicating things in this way, thank you very much!

So what's with the pink and blue? Let us consider here a discussion on children's fashions in the past few hundred years.

Disclaimer: The next two paragraphs have much to do only with patterns of fashion in the western world. India has a very different story - a veritable study in ethnology ... but that is a subject for an entirely different post. Suffice here to say that the pink v/s blue debate with all its history has made an entry to our country quite recently - though making waves enough to start worrying.

In the west, children of both genders wore only white, at the most, shades of grey, up to 6-7 years of age, for a very practical reason: soiled clothes could be cleaned only by boiling them, and coloureds were a waste. The styles were also similar, much like dresses, with boys' clothes buttoned up in the front and the girls' buttoned up behind. When pastels came in, both genders wore all colours. Around the time of WW1, pink was actually associated with boys, as it was considered a watered down version of red, a colour associated with strength and bravery.

Yet, today, all things feminine are associated with the colour pink - a belief that we have to thank Nazi Germany for. Just like they made it compulsary for Jews to put on a yellow Star of David to distinguish them, they issued pink stars to those men that they believed were homosexual - these too were part of the reprehensible Final Solution. This gave pink a 'non-masculine' tag, and was equated with all things feminine. This, of course, has been exploited by marketing divisions of companies like Disney and Mattel to widen the divide and create a market for girl things and boy things. Not just toys and clothes, but every b****y thing!

Magenta, an extraspectral colour
pic courtesy biotele.com

Let me put one thing straight. I have nothing against pink, and I think it is a beautiful colour. I have no problems using something pink, on the stipulation that it does not have the associations I have spoken of. Same goes for orange, grey, turquoise, white, green, blue, red, black, yellow, violet, and any other hue of the rainbow. Speaking of rainbows, pink is not even a colour from the spectrum- there is no wavelength that translates to pink. It is a trick played by our brain, that interprets a mixture of the wavelengths for red and violet as magenta, a deep shade of pink. Experimentally, this can be created by superimposing two different spectrums created by two prisms. Try it. Go ahead- click on this link to read the complete explanation. It's fascinating!

I would just like to mention a couple of things from the book at the end.

Cinderella's story as we know it is the one popularised by Charles Perrault. He, in turn, based it on a tale from the Grimm Brothers' collection of folktales and fairy tales. The tale of Aschenputtel, a fiesty girl who does not wait around for any fairy godmother or the prince to rescue her- complete with gory bits, now sanitised for our consumption to the point where we have a good and beautiful but wimpy heroine.

Peggy Orenstein also dedicates the last chapter to do-able remedies against the unstoppable and unavoidable onslaught of the girlie culture. And keeping in mind the natural rebelliousness of the fast-growing but impressionale children whose lives can get impacted.

Book Review: The Agenda of the Apprentice Scientist

Today is World Science Day and World Read-aloud Day, and yesterday was World Math Day. 2012 has been declared the National Mathematics Year in honour of the 125th anniversary of Ramanujan's birth. Today is also International Women's Day.

What better than to celebrate it with a book originally written by a woman physicist of some note, translated from the French into English by another woman? A book that encompasses all branches of science, as well as math.

Being in a montessori environment at school upto grade 3 meant that hands-on experience played a major part in my daughter's learning at school. Even now, in middle school, she prefers to be explained things through experiment. Quite often, when she is not quite convinced about a concept taught in the more by-rote manner, I found that it helps to get down to the hands-on method. So when I found this book, I knew it was just the right one for her.

The Agenda of the Apprentice Scientist
Written by Nicole Ostrowsky
Illustrated by Theresa Bronn
Translated from French by Radhika Viswanathan with Gillian Rosner
Published by Universities Press
Ages 7-70 (as it says in a foreword by none other than CNR Rao.)

As parents, we come across this experience almost daily- whether in the sphere of academics or otherwise- our children ask us something, and sometimes (OK, a lot of times) it is something that we may not be very sure of ourselves. When I am faced with such a situation, I often try to explain it to her, regardless, but smart cookie that she is, she sees through the attempt. Then I have to admit I need to learn more about / think through about the topic at hand, before I can explain it to her to her satisfaction.

Dr Nicole Ostrowsky, former head of
Laboratory of Physics and Condensed
Matter, University of Nice,
Current Professor Emeritus

So the acid test of whether one has understood something or not is if one can explain something to a child in clear, simple terms. That is just what this book, written by French physicist Dr Nicole Ostrowsky, who believes in a hands-on approach to education, is about.

There is one new idea / question / problem to ponder on for each day of the year, so we are introduced to 365 concepts, some known, some unknown. All fun to work on. The experiments involve easy-to-obtain-at-home articles, and some days it is just an observation that needs pondering on.

Of course, true to her interest in the field, Dr Ostrowsky deals more with physics here, with quite a bit of spillover into mathematics and the other basic sciences. Each day's topic eases into the next days at many places, with a whole spectrum of ideas discussed over many days.

An example - the topic of temperature and thermodynamics with these headings:
Aug 18: Are you a good thermometer?
Aug 19: Let's start again!
Aug 20: Step outside your house at night.
Aug 21: Does a dog need a coat?
Aug 22: Fast freeze and slow freeze.
Aug 23: Freeze- the old fashioned way.
Aug 24: Gabriel (Fahrenheit) made some funny choices.
Aug 25: Let's simplify.
Aug 26: Blow hot and cold.
Aug 27: Why do we blow on our soup to cool it down?
Aug 28: How do you dry your hair?
Aug 29: Look at the mirror in your bathroom after a hot shower.
Aug 30: Where does rain come from?
Aug 31: Evaporation+condensation=distillation.

All this with many more questions, and very clear explanations as footnotes.

My favourite features, the quirky illustrations and the relevant quotes on each page! On the Aug 24 page-look above- there is a quote by Jean Loup Chiflet-"It was so hot that the thermometer read: see the next column!"

Book cover image courtesy flipkart, Dr Nicole Ostrowsky's photograph courtesy blog.hippocampus.in.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Book Review - THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE: Voices from the Partition of India

Pic courtesy flipkart.com

THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE
Voices from the Partition of India
Written by Urvashi Butalia
Published by Penguin Books
1998.

Urvashi Butalia, the writer, has impressive credentials. Along with Ritu Menon, she set up Kali for Women, the first feminist press in India, in 1984, and later, Zubaan Books. Born to in Ambala, India, to parents who were refugees from West Punjab, now in Pakistan, she grew up hearing stories of  the Partition, which tore apart the Indian subcontinent at the time of its freedom from British rule.

She began her research as a process of making sense of her family's personal tragedy. One thing led to another, and over time she realised that what 'history' tells us of the Partition are the bare political facts: tales of warring political parties and the British involvement in the whole gory process, the loss of property and lives, the statistics of the largest mass migration in recent history and violence in the riots between the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs caught in the unfortunate event.

There was not much data on the renting apart of the closely enmeshed fabric of society and the actual sufferings of the flesh-and-blood people caught in the crossfire. The feminist in her also became aware of the huge conspiracy of silence (this term has also been used in reference to the victims of that other regrettable horror of the same time, the Holocaust) that enfolded the suffering of those considered to be of 'not much account' and therefore on the margins of citizenry- the women, the children and the harijans.

"But the 'history' of Partition seemed to lie only in the political developments that led up to it. These other aspects - what had happened to the millions of people who had to live through this time, what we may call the 'human dimensions' of this history -- somehow seemed to have a 'lesser' status in it. Perhaps this was because they had to do with difficult things: loss and sharing, friendship and enmity, grief and joy, with a painful regret and nostalgia for loss of home, country and friends, and with an equally strong determination to create them afresh. These were difficult things to capture 'factually.' Yet, could it be that they had no place in the history of Partition? Why, then, did they live on so vividly in individual and collective memory?"

Ms Butalia takes us through these events as pieced together from first-person accounts of survivors. The stories seem fantastic, the violence, the bloodiness ant the loss inexplicable, as does the almost mythological account of a society where the different religions had lived together in harmony, love and trust. Surely something had gone seriously wrong somewhere for the anger to have erupted as it had, killing and maiming millions, and creating a legacy of communal disharmony, and an almost pathological enmity between the two countries which were once part of one whole. A whole that had effectively driven their colonial rulers away.

The feminist in the writer notes some very interesting aspects of the problem. Even the interviews were necessarily taken in a family setting, where men did most of the talking, and women were often silenced. While men spoke of the politics, the killings, the violence, the women's experience of Partition was largely defined by the death of children, abductions, sexual violence, honour killings, forcible co-habitation/marriages with their abductors, their making peace with it, especially after children were born of these relationships.

During their interviews, Ms Butalia tried to listen to the unsaid, the silences, the sudden breaking-off of the narrative, the nuances. "In my work, the more I looked at women's voices and found them inserting themselves into the text, the more I realised that the silences did not exist only around women, but also around others, those whose silences have been even less important to society. The search for a history of women was what then led me to a search for a history of others. The voices of women, of children, of untouchables, to me provide not only a different perspective on the history of Partition, but they also establish this history as a process, a continuing history, which lives on in our lives today in a variety of ways." 

Then there was the ultimate insult to injury- the Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration) Act, 1949. A lot of this has been pieced together from accounts of social workers who were actively involved in the operation. Ostentiably to recover abducted women and children and return them to their families, the Act would not take into account the women's choice in the matter, something that all citizens were given upto the late fifties. After being abducted, these women often got assimilated into those families, bore children out of those relationships, but were torn from these children when they were 'recovered' to return to their families of origin. The original families would often refuse to accept these 'children of sin' which were left with their abductor-fathers. Quite often these children ended up on the streets with the other children who had been displaced or orphaned in the Partition. Both the women and children were refused the 'choice' that citizens of both countries had at the time.

First-hand accounts by some of these children, adults at the time of interviewing, underscore the same conspiracy of silence. Many of them glossed over their accounts, unable as adults to relate their memories of the horrors. Some of them, like a Sikh survivor who was just 9 at the time of Partition, had memories overshadowed by one particular incident- the death of their own familiy's hands of almost a hundred girls and women to 'save' their honour - an incident immortalised in the book and later movie Tamas.

In fact, most of these personal stories have been found to a large extent in a multitude of short stories and novellas written by many noted authors who have lived through the Partition- Amrita Pritam (Pinjar), Saadat Hasan Manto (Toba Tek Singh, Kingdom's End and other stories), Gulzar (Raavi Par and other stories), Khushwant Singh (Train to Pakistan), Bapsi Sidhwa (Ice-Candy Man), Bhisham Sahni (Tamas), and more. Many of these stories have been made into film, reaching a larger audience. Many bollywood movies, too, speak of the Partition or 'Batwara' as it is called in Hindi.

History, as told in history books, however, sticks mostly to the bare facts and statistics of the Partition. 'The other side of silence' tries to address this deficit in a more factual way, that can be corroborated, than the fictionalised accounts. Showing us that the fiction is not a very long way off reality.

More than twelve million people left their roots and migrated, about ten million of these crossing the western border. Around two million died in the violence. An estimated  75,000-1,00,000 women are thought to have been abducted and raped by men of religions different from their own (and indeed sometimes by men of their own religion). An estimated 50,000 children were born to the abducted women, an an unaccounted number of children were abandoned or simply lost. "People travelled in buses, in cars, by train, but mostly on foot in great columns called kafilas, which could stretch for dozens of miles. The longest of them, said to comprise nearly 400,000 people, refugees travelling east to India from western Punjab, took as many as eight days to pass any given spot on its route."

Ms Butalia has very honestly admitted that her work does not represent the whole of the history of Partition, but is a very personal history, her reading of the interviews she took. She also candidly admits that it is probably a very one-sided view of the whole thing, as by 1984, when she began her research, it was no longer possible to obtain access to those on the other side of the border, and cautions communal groups from using her research to reach their ends.

Here are some more excerpts from the book.

Am entering this book in the 2011 South Asian Reading Challenge at S.Krishna's books.

RAMAYANA : Divine Loophole (and another swap)

First: The last two posts and the next 2-3 have been drafted and scheduled by me before I have come away on a vacation visiting relatives. I might be able to type out the odd "fresh"one once in a while when I get some online time like now, and am keying in this bit to a scheduled post.

Second:  Zoe at playing by the book is hosting another International postcard swap for families. We had participated last year, and had had a lot of fun choosing postcards, writing letters for the families we had to send them to, choosing a small gift that we could post with each letter and posting them. Then we just had to wait for the letters that we were to receive to arrive in the post. It was like Forrest Gump's mother says about a box of chocolates-"You never know what you would get!" Other than the enjoyment we derived from the whole exercise, A learnt a lot about how the postal system works, as we hardly send or receive any personal letters by post in these days of instant messaging. We also took the opportunity to learn some things about the places we sent letters to or received them from. A lesson in geography and history! As a bonus, we also made some friends that we connected with across the world. In all, a rewarding experience.

So when Zoe posted about the 2011 postcard swap, we were quick to sign up. Anyone can do so, by sending her a mail at zoe (dot) toft (at) kuvik (dot) net and she will send you the details. You may also access her post for the details. As she says, participants have to be willing to send at least a postcard with a book recommendation to at least five families internationally. Have fun!

And now for today's review. The book was lent to me by my good friend Choxbox who in turn was gifted it by Utbt. Thanks, ladies!

Pic courtesy flipkart


RAMAYANA
Divine Loophole
Written and illustrated by Sanjay Patel
Ages 6+
Published by Chronicle books

Indian children grow up with a regular dose of their mythology. Everything in our homes, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the customs we follow, the languages we speak with all the connotations, the festivals we celebrate- all resonate with our mythological stories and folklore. The very first stories at bedtime have the characters Ram, Sita, Hanuman, Krishna, etc., and their escapades. This ensures that these children are no strangers to the great epics of our country- The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha.

Now consider a child who has never come across these stories from our mythology, but would like to read them nevertheless. Just pick up Sanjay Patel's Ramayana- Divine Loophole, and read it.

The book, written by Sanjay Patel, a veteran Pixar studio animator, condenses the epic into bite-sized morsels, pithily titled, and easily digestible by all. For example- pages where he describes Ravana are titled 'Desperate Demon' and 'Cosmic Bully.' Those about Shoorpanakha are 'Fatal Attraction' and 'Nosey Demon.' The page where Rama's army is standing looking across over the sea to Lanka, wondering how to bridge it is titled 'Oceans Apart.' Apt.

The language used is what a youngster will call 'Cool!' The book begins with Ravana, describing him thus-"Since this is an epic story, let's start with the most scandalous of characters: the bad guy. This is no ordinary bad guy; we're talking about a ten-headed demon with bad teeth!"

When Sugriva promises to help Rama find Sita, "Sugriva and Jambavan assured Rama that he would also have the help of their families." This is followed by a page with a full page illustration of a variety of monkeys on trees and many bears too.-"THEIR ENTIRE FAMILIES."

There are many things in the Ramayana inconceivable to modern, especially western sensibilities. The writer, keeping these in mind, does add a bit of his own, eliciting a smile. On the page about the agnipareeksha of Sita, after the war, we have Rama apologising to Sita, and the page ends with "Times have changed, as have customs, but love has always been complicated."

For this is unabashedly for the western reader interested into a first dip into this great epic. After the story, we have a glossory with biographies of all the characters involved- whether Rama, Sita, Dashrath, the queens, the princes, the demons or the monkeys and other animals- Jambavan, Jatayu, Hanuman, Angad, the works. We also have a detailed line-map of the path taken by Rama in his exile, as also a chapter on the actual art of the fabulous illustrations.

I do have a few bones to pick, though. For one, the buildings illustrated are more like those one may encounter in the Middle East and Turkey, and are not at all like those that might have existed in India in the period of the Ramayana. We do have the Taj Mahal and other masterpieces of Mughal architecture, but that was much later. Secondly, Ravana had 10 heads, not 9! Thirdly, the font needs a magnifying glass. Surely no space could have been saved by using such a miniscule one!

As the author says in the foreword, "I'm certain that, for most people, 'Ramayana' (RHA-mah-YAH-nah) is just an unpronounceable word. But for me, the Ramayana is part of my cultural identity...the world of the Ramayana was ingrained in me as a kid through the details of living with Hindu parents."

A read the book at one sitting, and was enchanted by it. I have told her a lot of the individual stories that make up the Ramayana, as bedtime tales, but as she put it after reading the book :"Finally, Aai, I know what the Ramayana is all about!" So now I can introduce the child to more detailed versions, which she is sure to enjoy in context!
I am entering this review for the Reading the world challenge 2011 over at Papertigers for A under the US of A, as it is written and illustrated by Sanjay Patel, who works there for the Pixar animation studio, and his illustrations bear the unmistakeable stamp of someone working in animation.

Also entering it for the Read a myth challenge hosted by by Bina of Bibliojunkie.

Also entering it for 2011 South Asian challenge at S. Krishna's books.

The Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler romance :the trilogy

Pic courtesy flipkart
Published by Pan books

GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

Which self-respecting bibliophile hasn't heard of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind? The famed love story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. Even the making of its movie version is the stuff of legends.

For those who don't, a quick re-cap : Placed during the period of the American civil war, it is a saga of the end of a way of life that was the southern states of the US, and a beginning of a more modern era after the abolition of slavery. It is also the love story of beautiful, bewitching but hard-headed Scarlett, who has a spine of steel and a very strong survivor's instinct, who constantly rebels against the patriarchial restrictions of a society that seems unfair to her as a woman, and the dashing, notorious Rhett Butler, who has a soft heart, a sense of fairness re the slaves not understood by the others, who is 'not received' by genteel folk, but, accepted by them as one of them when he proves himself an exemplary father. Who fights for hard-headed Scarlett's love, which comes to him too late.

The characters of Ashley Wilkes, who Scarlett loves from afar, and his wife Melanie, whose brother Charles Scarlett marries out of picque, and who stands staunchly behind Scarlett inspite of everything, are paler, simpler people, and their story is the perfect foil for the more vibrant tale of the main characters.

The book is complete in itself, ending on the famous line- "I'll think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day!" One does wonder, though, what happens to them.

Pic courtesy flipkart
Published by
Grand Central publishing

SCARLETT by Alexandra Ripley.

A few years back, a sequel was published, and I, of course gobbled it up. Scarlett was written by Alexandra Ripley, and it satisfied all those who were disenchanted by the abandoning of Scarlett by Rhett, now that she had realised that she loved him. In this book, Scarlett single-mindedly sets out to woo Rhett back, and we are amazed by her sheer grit and determination. Inspite of the unsavoury methods she often adopts, one cannot but be impressed by her mental strength. Something that even Rhett falls short of at times.

It was a fast read, though Ripley could not really match up to Margaret Mitchell in my mind. It was somehow more decadent, painting Scarlett quite scarlet in her attempts, making the book very garish, not quite able to capture the grace of the original. It becomes quite over-dramatic and cheesy at times. I may be biased, though, having read the original in my teens, a more impressionable age, and when one does not look at things too critically.

Another way of looking at it would be to cheer her in single-mindedly setting out to achieve what she wanted. After all, she was jeered at and ostracised from genteel society for the very characteristics that Rhett was praised for. So typical! As we shall see in our third book, written with Rhett as our protagonist, he keeps thinking to himself-"How like me she is!"

Does she get back her man? Find out.

Pic courtesy flipkart
Published by Pan books

RHETT BUTLER'S PEOPLE by Donald McCaig

Right on the cover is specified : "The authorised novel based on Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind."

Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley was disowned by the Margaret Mitchell foundation, which called it 'an embarrassment.' Rhett Butler's People totally disregards the story as it plays out in that book, and tells its own story. Equally well-researched and well written.

It follows the same tenets of romance and genteel behaviour as the original it is based on, and covers a much longer period - from Rhett's childhood, through his youth to where he meets, woos and weds Scarlett, to further- and we have a happy ending here, though a filmy one, with revenge taking villians, shooting, and deaths of supposedly superflous characters.

Characters of a lesser importance in the original are fleshed out, making them more interesting, and we hear their stories too- Rhett's parents, his sister Rosemary, Belle Watling, her family, and her role in Rhett's life, the friendship between Rosemary and Melanie Wilkes, (we learn a lot from the exchange of letters between them) and Rhett's affection for his childhood friend, the free-born black Tunis, who he shoots to death when he is taken into custody, to save him from the worse fate of being tortured and burnt at the stake on a false complaint by a thwarted white woman.

The one thing that strikes us is the more detailed accounts of the Civil War, well researched, since our protagonist is on the battlefront for some time at least. Surely a more testosterone laden version of 'Gone with the Wind.'

Between them the three books give an interesting 'What if?' perspective of the story, as the two later books go on totally different lines. One thing shines out, though. For all her faults, Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is today's woman, one who knows her mind, and passionately loves those that she does- be it her mother, Mammy, Rhett, Melanie, or Tara, her home, and is willing to go to great lengths for them.

Will be entering this for the 2011 global reading challenge under North America and for the Reading the world challenge 2011 at Papertigers for me under The US of A, fiction.

Crossposted at Bookreviews.

Book Review: DARBY



Pic courtesy flipkart

DARBY
Written by Jonathon Scott Fuqua
Published by Candlewick Press
Ages 9-12 yrs

Darby Carmichael is a white, 9 yr old girl living in Bennettsville, Marlboro county, South Carolina, in the racially intolerant early 1920s. She has two "best friends", Beth at the all-white school, and Evette Robinson, the girl who stays on the farm next door, the daughter of a black sharecropper. Darby looks forward to coming home from school everyday, so that she can just run off to play with Evette. Given a choice, of course, Darby would choose Evette over all her other friends, but even at 9, she knows that it cannot be done.

Darby's dream is to be a newpaper journalist, and she attempts to write for the local daily, helped to a large extent by Evette with whom she discusses her ideas, and who edits her work. This is accepted by Mr Salter, the editor of the Bennettsville Times, who is a friend of her father's. Of course, he knows all about Evette's role in this, but does not say anything, as he, along with Darby's father, is anti racial sentiment.

Darby gets better and better in her writing (with Evette's help of course), and soon has an article appearing in the daily every week, her family and friends making much of it! So when she witnesses the beating up of Evette's brother for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, by Turpin Dunn, a white man who she knows her father despises for his ill-manners and bad-tempered behaviour, and who her father knows is a member of the dreaded Klu Klux Klan, she proceeds to write about it. Fully knowing the furore this would cause, her father permits the daily to publish it.

What happens next? How is the following drama played out? Does right prevail in the end?

A wonderful book about the battle of right against wrong, about an innate sense of equality present in a child's mind, in a first person version of a 9 yr old on the "priviledged" side of racial segregation. A coming of age book, a journey from wide-eyed innocence to the slow dawning of a knowledge of reality, and the courage to stand up for what one thinks is right.

The book reminded me strongly of a well loved favourite-To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, reviewed here- and could be said to be along similar lines.

A good book to follow up this wonderful book reviewed by Meera on ST. A book in honour of Black History Month.

Crossposted at Saffrontree and at Bookreviews.

Battling the bogeyman in the dark

A is a child who is afraid of the dark. This fear is not strange to me, as I, too used to be afraid of the dark as a child, and this daughter of mine has inherited my over-active imagination. Even now I am unwilling to watch a horror movie (a real, spine chilling one- not the merely grotesque stuff that passes for horror sometimes!) as my imagination goes into a super-active mode!  

She does not go into a dark room by herself, unless there is someone standing outside urging her on to go ahead, and put on the light. Unfortunately, the builders of our house, while setting up electric connections and such, have placed the light switches at the far end of bedrooms, and not even in full view of the door. So if I stand outside, encouraging her to go in on her own and switch on the lights, she cannot see me there. I do not want to crystallise this feeling of fear by insisting on her doing this by herself without the crutch of me standing outside. At the same time, I do not want to convey the message to her that it may be OK to be frightened of the dark, in her own house. So I do not go in with her to switch on the light if it is she who wants something from there.

So her reaction to books with real horror in it (remember her distress on reading 'The Giant's Necklace' by Michael Morpurgo? Reviewed here. ) is a lot of distress. It makes me doubly careful while giving her books in this genre. So when I came across 'The Wolves in the Walls', by master spooky-storyteller Neil Gaiman at the library, that too in a picture book format for younger children, I decided to read it myself. And on reading it, I decided it would be a great book for A to get introduced to this wonderful writer, some of whose books I've dared to venture into myself.

Pic courtesy amazon.co.uk

The Wolves in the Walls

Written by Neil Gaiman

Illustrated by Dave McKean

Published by Bloomsbury
Lucy hears noises in her room at night. She knows what they are. There are wolves in the wall!

"Rats!" says her mother, unconcerned, busy with housework.

"Bats!" says her brother, busy with his school work.

Her father, a tuba player, doesn't even think it worthwhile to give her an explanation.

All of them tell her- "If the wolves come out of the walls, it's all over." 

And then, the scraping and scratching noises grow louder and louder, until one night, the wolves DO come out of the walls.

So is it over? Not by a long shot! It is just the beginning. The beginning of courage in Lucy, who, after scampering outside with her family, away from the wolves, realises that her pink pig-puppet has been left behind. And he has to be rescued. Inspite of her fear of the wolves. To her, it is her baby. Not "just a puppet!" as her father puts it.

This is something A could relate to very well, as she loves babies, and has already declared to me that she will marry (boys? yucky creatures!) only because she wants babies!

So what happens next? Does Lucy manage to get into the house and rescue her pink pig-puppet from the clutches of the wolves? And do they manage to drive the wolves out, after all?

A and I read this nail-biting, on-the-edge-of-our-seats story recently, and A loved it. As she rightly put it- "I'm glad I'm not so little anymore, or I would have been really frightened."  For the book is the stuff of nightmares. So although it is a picture book that can be read aloud to younger children, maybe 5+, I would still put the appropriate age at 8+.

We visited Neil Gaiman, the writer in this post during CROCUS 2010, on Saffrontree. All the books that I have read by him were spooky to an extent I was not comfortable with introducing to A, knowing her. So when I read through this book, it came to me that here was the perfect book with which to introduce this wonderful writer to her.

And the illustrations! Done in a combination of pen-and-ink sketches, watercolours and actual photographs, Dave McKean has brought the 'spooky' factor alive for us. It has that unmistakeable quality of graphic novels, where sometimes pictures speak more than words. Full page, in dark shades, alternating between hazy and stark, with the text written at strategic points. Dark but funny, realistic yet enchantingly fairy-tale like. A perfect foil for Gaiman's story-telling.

Two pictures struck us as extraordinary- the page on which the wolves come out of the walls- she let out a small scream, the dynamic energy of the wolves running out, with that 'almost heard in your head' baying that can be easily imagined. Another is the page on which the family is huddled outside around a fire- the fire has a very realistic glow in the overlapping strokes of red, yellow and orange that the artist has used. One could almost feel the heat.

A great book for addressing those things that go 'bump' in the night.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Edited to add : Entering this for the Reading the world challenge 2011 for A under Great Britain and fiction.

I don't really think Murphy ever went shopping by an auto!

Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.  This happened a few years back, when A could legitimately be whiny and cranky without being labelled babyish!

When you want to walk, like I did today, going to a grocery shop a kilometer from my house, there will be many empty autorikshaws that pass you. One will even stop to ask you if you need an auto.

However, there won't be a single auto in sight when you are

(a) already tired after a hectic morning in which the househelp turned up late, after you had finished washing some of the vessels, after having cooked and packed lunch for the husband going to office,
(b) got the daughter to hurry through her relaxed morning on a school holiday,
(c) in a hurry to get to some place,
(d) walking a reluctant daughter along, as she has to be taken along, since the shopping expedition is for her benefit, and you cannot leave her alone at home even if it wasn't. She is also be at her whiny best, not willing to accompany you, having better things to do at home, like reading the latest book borrowed from the library or school friends, not willing to walk the distance to finding an auto that is available.

If you do find one, the driver will be      

(a) in no mood to drive at the moment,
(b) not willing to go where you want him to take you,
(c) desirous of fleecing you if he is willing to condescend enough to take you and your unwilling daughter to the (supposedly obscure, in his opinion! After all, it is a major market place, in your opinion!) place you want to go to.
(d) likely to be a rude, risk-taking person prone to road-rage, more in a hurry than you to get to your destination, causing palpitations every time he swerves particularly dangerously, weaving his way through equally unruly ongoing and oncoming traffic, swearing at you if you ask him to slow down a bit, in obscure kannada, which you cannot decipher even though you have a working knowledge (?) of the language, but can make out the force behind his words.
(e) likely to argue with you on reaching your destination about how out-of-the-way-back-of-beyond-cannot-get-any-passenger-here-at-this-time it is, even though you very well know it is not, demanding an excess fare over the excess you have already committed yourself to at the beginning of your roller-coaster ride, which you argue half-heartedly for a while against, but give it anyway, just to be able to get rid of the suicidal, maniacal boor!!!

Ditto when you get to that destination.

You will need to walk through a crowded market street with said uninterested daughter in tow, looking for a shop that has done a disappearing act. You have obviously suffered a short-term memory loss, having got directions to said shop from a friend on phone just a few hours ago, or grossly misunderstood her directions, or said friend has obviously given you the wrong turning.

You try calling said friend on phone, only to get an 'engaged' signal, at least three times in 10 mins, all the while trying to hush the now obviously annoyed daughter who is suddenly hungry.

Finally you get through to said friend, realise with relief (oh, for small mercies!) that you are not suffering from short-term memory loss, after all, the friend realising that her directions were wrong. You then proceed to listen to the correct directions, disconnect the call after thanking her, and continue to search for the shop, after instructing daughter to hold her hunger pangs for a while, as you need to do the job you came for first.

You finally find the shop, only to find the owner just closing it, it being a friday, the day on which most, if not all shops in this area close for around two hours in the afternoon for prayer. You have obviously
(a) not accounted for it being a friday,
(b) not started from home early enough, having decided at the last minute to take advantage of the holiday and shop for the daughter,
(c) not accounted for that search for an auto with a whiny child in tow,
(d) not accounted for wrong directions, losing out on valuable time in searching for the place.

So you try to make the best of a bad situation and decide to take a hungry daughter and thirsty self to some place where one can relax, eat, drink and make merry. After all, it's a friday, and you have a two hours' respite. Shopping can continue later in a more replete, relaxed, refreshed state of being.

And for another reading challenge. This one is both for A and me, and promises to be fun. It is hosted by the Papertigers at the Reading the World Challenge 2011. It is a child-friendly challenge, and so one in which both of us can participate. This also goes hand-in-hand with the other challenge that I'm undertaking, the 2011 Global Reading Challenge. There are bound to be some overlaps in the books that I may choose for both these challenges, and I'll be able to crosspost.

Rules for the Papertigers challenge:

1. Choose six books from/about/by or illustrated by someone from different countries anywhere in the world, 3 of which must be in different continents.


2. Choose one book from/about your city/district – as local and as relevant to your geographical setting as you can find.


3. You should choose at least one book of each of the following: fiction, poetry and non-fiction.


4. Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class. Combine your choices with other reading challenges.

5. There is no time limit for this year’s Challenge, apart from completing it by the end of the year.


I can certainly look forward to some interesting reading choices this year!

Of a charity, challenges, and promises to be kept!

Here is a call for charity. Zoe at playingbythebook.net has listed some of her favourite book charities, and will be donating one GB pound per comment, up to a max of 30 pounds to one of these charities, or books worth the same to her daughter's school. So do click on this link to go to her post.

Also, back home, Spastics Society of Karnataka  is holding a Christmas Carnival on the 18th of December. Please visit, and have fun while supporting the cause. You may donate in cash or kind. Items should be in a saleable condition. A friend has a differently-abled child, and regularly volunteers at this NGO. Please do donate!

It is that time of the year when we look back and introspect. I have had my good, bad and ugly moments, contributing altogether to a kaleidoscope of experiences. Here's hoping that the next year will be better than this one.

I began blogging in March this year, and this is my 67th post. It opened up a completely new world for me, one in which I made new friends. My blog gives me a platform to write about anything that interests or touches me, book-related and other talks with my daughter A, and most importantly, a space where I can share my thoughts on a book that really interested me. Along the way, I also joined my favourite kid-lit-blogging site Saffrontree as a contributor, and have learnt much there. I also joined another site, bookreviews, where one can access a whole lot of reviews of books on myriad topics, in all genres.

I took part in the International Postcard Swap for families and the
Perfect Picture Books by post hosted by my good friend Zoe, at playingbythebook.net.

Also took part in a reading challenge, the Flashback Re-reading Challenge. I joined quite late in the year, so I could manage only the basic challenge.

For next year, I would like to join two challenges. Both of which are very interesting.

One is the 2011 Global Reading Challenge. I will be joining in at the easy level. The rules for this are as follows.

Read one novel from each of these continents in the course of 2011:

Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America (please include Central America where it is most convenient for you)

The Seventh Continent (here you can either choose Antarctica or your own ´seventh´ setting, eg the sea, the space, a supernatural/paranormal world, history, the future – you name it).

From your own continent: try to find a country, state or author that is new to you.

The second challenge is the 2011 South Asian Challenge. Read about it first at Monika's World.

The rules for this are as follows.

(1) A book must be by a South Asian author.  For these purposes, South Asia includes the following countries: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Maldives.  There are no limitations on what the book can be about.

(2) A book must be about South Asia.  In this case, it can be set in a South Asian country or be about South Asians living abroad.  It can also be a biography or memoir of a South Asian, or of a non-South Asian traveling or working in South Asia.  In this case, the author does not need to be South Asian, as long as the subject matter focuses on the region, peoples, or cultures in some way.

Any type book qualifies, as long as it meets one of the two guidelines above - a cookbook, short story or essay collection, travel guide.

I would be aiming for the South Asian Explorer level, which requires me to read at least 5 books under the rules.

There are also a couple of promises to myself that I would like to declare here.

One is that I need to do more of reading than I have managed in this year. I have been doing fine as far as reading with A is concerned, but need to invest more time in reading just for myself.

Two is that I need to start on an exercise regimen ASAP. I've become pretty lazy on that front. There was a time when I was quite regular, but of late I seem to have become more of a couch potato. It has begun to tell on my knees (twinges of pain now and then, problems getting up from a low seat-just won't do. I have miles to go yet- A is just 9!) and lungs (huffing after having climbed a few flights of stairs- NOT good!) The weighing scales too have their own tale to tell. So- exercise, and WATCH THAT PLATE!

Other resolutions- well, let's just say that they'll keep.

Will be taking off for the rest of the year, and will probably post only in the new year. We're travelling over the Christmas vacation. Where to? Well, all I'll say here is that we'll probably have a white Christmas, and A will be able to indulge in her wish for a snowman. She has taken to wondering if Santa will deliver away from home. Speaking of which, we have already received one gift- a book from Zoe! Thanks, Zoe. I'm sure we'll enjoy it. Will post about it after we've been through it.

So have a good vacation, and a great New Year!