Aakar and the New World of Shapes

MY THOUGHTS

Learning shapes is a huge milestone for young kids, and as parents, we try to keep it interesting with games, art, and puzzles. But are you ready to take it a step further? Aakar and the New World of Shapes is an interesting book that uses stories to teach kids about shapes. It goes beyond the usual shapes of circle, square, triangle and encourages kids to look at shapes in things around them.

Aakar is a nine-year-old boy who doesn’t like his name, even more so because his classmates tease and bully him. He asks his parents why they named him Aakar, and that’s when his mother tells him his name is beautiful because it means Shape and that the world is made of different shapes. She encourages him to look at all the different shapes around him. This sets Aakar to look at everyday ordinary things and find shapes. Each chapter is dedicated to a shape he finds around him, and the discussion he has with his mother about the shape. From looking at chaklis to learn about spirals to stumbling upon the X shape while looking at scissors in a tailor shape — Aakar begins to realise that shapes are intriguing things to learn about!

What I loved about this book is that each chapter is dedicated to one shape, and that makes it easy for a child to read just one shape a day and look for that shape in their own world. The chapters are short and easy for young readers to navigate. Anushree uses the Hindi word for the shape to name the chapters, so that is an additional bit of learning for kids. Using dialogue and daily situations, she makes each chapter engaging and thoroughly relatable.

Abhijeet Kini (whose illustrations I loved from the Butterfingers series) adds so much life and fun to the stories by giving them that comic book touch. The book is bright, colourful, and absolutely delightful! Do add this one to your young reader’s library.