Tulika Book Buzz

Birdywood Beat
The children of Nalanda School, Mumbai, grooved to the sounds of the Birdywood Beat with writer Shamim Padamsee, who did a storytelling session with The Great Birdywood Games. Woo-hoot!

Jadoo at Kitab Khana

The teachers of Ascend International School, Mumbai, did a wonderful bilingual reading of The Magic Feather at Kitab Khana on Saturday 11th December 2012. Varsha read the Hindi version and simultaneously, Kelly read the English version of this delightful book, written and illustrated by Roma Singh.  The reading was followed by a fun book-decorating craft project. Three cheers for reading!

Bambooing
Writer and storyteller Praba Ram did a read-aloud session at Kangaroo Kids on November 30th. One of the books she chose to read out from was Tulika’s Bulbuli’s Bamboo. “I thoroughly enjoyed poring over the rich, vibrant colours of the illustrations in this book… The lively play on prepositions makes each page a pleasure to read-aloud,” says Praba Ram, in this review of Bulbuli’s Bamboo. 

Paploodum

“Every page in this book is a natural conversation starter, so there’s no end to how far the imaginations can soar when you and your child sit with a book like this,” says Richa Jha, in this review of Why Paploo Was Perplexed.

Bondas, Birds and More:Shamim Padamsee at Bookaroo 2012

Writer and educationist Shamim Padamsee has published many books with Tulika. Her first, Dancing on Walls, a fantasy story on how Warli art may have been born, is hugely popular as is A Silly Story of Bondapalli. Birdywood Buzz: The Vulture Returns, a zippy take on filmdom, and its sequel, The Great Birdywood Games, a cool take on the Olympic Games, are together a wonderful introduction to birdlife. 

Keenly interested in early childhood education, the environment and wildlife, Shamim pursues all her passions with equal zeal and started Young India Books, a website which reviews and promotes Indian children's books.

Here is Shamim in action at Bookaroo 2012!

"Alongside evocative illustrations by Soumya Menon, Padamsee has woven nuggets of information into the narrative"

Time Out

"The book not only has an entertainment, but an educational value as well. Characteristics of the birds are subtly woven with the story, which only one with a good understanding of birds can write."

Udaipur Times

"The imagery is delightful and it keeps you hovering right above in the sky as each bird makes its entry... The text is plain and lucid, but each bird attribute researched by the author will definitely make the reader want to find out more about each bird she/he encounters."

Donna Reen

"....cleverly encompasses the issue of self esteem! A perfect edutainment book."

Buzzing Books on Birdywood Buzz

"Bondapalli celebrates being round and fat and happy...Awesome illustrations, low word count, cheerful narratives endeared these tales to my five year old."

Saffron Tree

"Reading A Silly Story of Bondapalli is a delight precisely because the teller of this story is not standing on a high pedestal and teaching the readers any moral lessons."

The Book Review


"Shamim Padamsee's 'The Silly Story of Bondapalli', published by Tulika, is a wonderful story not only for children but also for adults, who want to have a good laugh after a stressful day. Simply 'Bondastic'!"

Blogger Hema  

"Children wills enjoy the bouncy rhythm of the story and cheer at the slapstick war that culminates at the end of the tale."

Ruhi Gurjar

You are invited...

Blogging about Bondapalli

I generally write stories that are factual, a sort of creative non-fiction that I spend months researching, as in the case of Birdywood Buzz.  For this story, I researched the looks of the birds, their special attributes and their behaviour.  I also had to ensure that all the birds mentioned in it could be seen in an Indian jungle, and maybe some even closer home, just in case my little readers went looking for them.

However, writing The Silly Story of Bondapalli was a ball all the way through. The child in me emerged and bounced all over the place, very much like the Bondapallites. 

The story was born one very rainy day as my sister who was visiting me from London, and I, sat in our verandah watching the downpour in dismay.  The flooded streets had shattered our plans to go shopping. 

Just then, the cook walked in with a plate of piping hot bondas.  We reached out to this very welcome distraction and soon gobbled up the entire plateful.

“I wonder what this will do to my figure?” I said, as I licked my fingers. 

“No doubt we’ll soon look like bondas ourselves,” my sister replied.

We imagined ourselves nicely rotund having a rollicking time, rolling here, there and everywhere.

As we laughed a little bulb flashed in my head.

A story!  A story!  I put pen to paper and began to write furiously.

Soon after, I left for my annual pilgrimage to the USA to visit my grandkids, aged 6 and 10 years and bounced the story off them.

I have to confess, I felt terrible about taking undue advantage of my captive audience.  But then, I found that instead of quietly slinking away, as kids; especially ten year olds tend to do, they were actually enjoying the story and happily rolling it along. 

Finally, on a beautiful crisp and cold winter’s day, the story was done. 

“All too soon,” said my grandchildren wistfully.

With a wish and a prayer, it winged its way to Tulika. 

“We love it,” they said to my utter delight. 

But that’s not the end of the story.  Not yet.  There was more work to be done.  The able hands of the editors Sandhya and Deeya, picked it up and closely examined it.  They sharpened their knives and chipped and chopped.  Sliced and diced.  Stirred and whirred. 

And then they pinched, “Ouch!”  They prodded, “Oof!”  And they pummeled, “Aahhh!”

Finally, The Silly Story of Bondapalli was ready to be served. And, the delighted chef (sorry author) danced with joy.


-Shamim Padamsee

Postscript: Here's some bonda art that did not make it to the book. Go ahead and name the bonda characters. We'll do one for you: Bonda Man. Ha. That was easy. Your turn now.

Reading 'Dancing on Walls' in Minnesota

In December ’09, I was invited to the Groveland Elementary School in St. Paul Minnesota, USA, to read to the children of the kindergarden.

I was introduced to the group by my 6 year old grand daughter.  I read Dancing on Walls to them.

The kids were fascinated with the squiggly figures of the Warli Art form and the illustrations.  ‘COOL!’ was the unanimous opinion.
They were full of questions.  They wanted to know what inspired me to write the story.  How long it took me to write it. They also wanted to know the process from concept to the final product – the book!

The discussion then veered towards how creativity stems from ‘imagination’.  The children wanted to share their flights of fantasy. In fact, the story session stirred up some pretty interesting insights for them as well as for me!

They wanted me to read some more stories about India. Unfortunately, I was not carrying any other book.  I promised them that the next time I visited I would come  with an armful of them.

- Shamim Padamsee

Psst! You can find a most excellent review of 'Dancing on Walls' on the Saffron Tree blog by Poppin's Mom