Who among us hasn’t sat in a tedious classroom with the lazy overhead fan groaning, wondering why in the world we are learning whatever the teacher is droning on about? We have all wished we sprouted wings to fly away or had a sudden bout of diarrhoea to run away from the lesson — anything […]
Does making friends ever get easier? Growing up, I moved to a new city every five years. Along the way, I picked up the necessary skills to talk to anyone and make friends quickly. Years later, I was told, all you need is a pet or a child, and you can make friends. Maybe that’s […]
This is an amazing story to introduce the mystery and suspense genre to young readers. Nisha Small: The Knot of Gold is about Madurai’s finest detective cracking her latest case. Nisha Small, formerly Nisha Kutty, is tasked with finding a missing thaali (gold chain). The missing chain has led to her best friend, Jamie Karthik’s […]
When you reach a certain age with school-going children, you will inevitably find yourself talking to friends, or taking crazy online quizzes to find out what kind of mom you are. Do you tend to hover over your child’s every activity?Are you a more free-range parenting mom?Are you the one who mollycoddles?Are you the strict […]
Our family recently holidayed in a beautiful wildlife reserve, and when it was time to leave, I asked the kids what they loved seeing and what they did not enjoy. They loved the waterfalls, different kinds of ferns, and little insect critters. They hated the mindless littering and the wilderness-unworthy behaviour. They were most unhappy watching […]
Rocket Boy Girl Champs Arjun loves Science and science experiments, but his mother has had enough of his experiments exploding and messing up her perfect home. Arjun doesn’t care about any other subject, and when his teacher announces a school-wide science competition, he knows he needs to win the top prize! The problem is, his […]
If your child is interested and excited about all things space and space missions, then you absolutely must have Menaka Raman’s books on your radar. Reaching for the Moon: Lessons from the Chandrayaan Mission is her third book on space, after Topi Rockets from Thumba and How to Reach Mars and Other Impossible Things. We […]
A few years ago, while quasi-homeschooling the kids during the COVID-19 pandemic, it struck me that the boys could name and identify European countries (due to football) and states of the USA (due to a game they watched on a sitcom), but were clueless about the states of India. Sure, they could identify a couple […]
There is a tree I pass daily on my morning walk with Clou that houses sunbirds, crows, pigeons, mynahs, sparrows, and a brown kite or two on its branches. I’d like to think it is a microcosm of our large society with different kinds of people living in it. Ever so often, I will spot a […]
Paati vs UNCLE, by Meera Ganapathi, is a book that was popular as soon as it was released. Everyone I followed on Instagram followed author Meera Ganapathi and had read SoupGram. That should tell you how popular she is! Talking to Meera on Tell Me a Story was easy, breezy. We had a no-fuss conversation filled with fun […]