Can Dinosaurs Come into our Living Room

Asks Tejas.
happe to mention that a dino is bigger than our house. That reassured him a bit since he says- so then they cannot come inside our house.

The kids are doing Dinosaur month in school.
Ojas comes home and tells me that they are supposed to colour a picture of a dinosaur.
I started shaking in my shoes at the prospect of looking for a dino pic so I asked Ojas back- where will I get a pic of a dino?
Says Ojas- exasperatedly- from the net!
Not bad. I came to know of the word internet during my MBA days.
So anyway, I drew a dino which was a cross between the camel photograph from Snoring Shanmugam book and a dino (err I hope) and they colored it in brown and black etc and took it to school.

As a follow up, I showed them bits of Jurassic Park.
Ojas had a fun time shooting at the dinos with laser light noise gun and Tejas was still saying I am scared
Ojas reassured him with his clear simple logic- don't worry, they canoot do anything, beech mein plastic hai- there is plastic (TV Screen) in between!

While on topic, the Walt Disney Dinosaur is way pleasing to us - we watched it on TV last month. A dino egg gets displaced and the newbie dino is brought up by lemurs. As catastrophes drive them out of their haunt, they join a herd of (veggie) dinos who are also looking for a new haunt with lots of water. Watch how they traverse the long, challenging and difficult journey sweetened with the young dinos love story who has till then never fallen in love as living among lemurs he couldn't find someone of his type.
Thisis a good hearted dino and hence very kid & adult friendly. Do catch it if you can!
I love the last line of the movie- we do not not what change lies ahead for us but we can only hope that our time here be remembered
Isn't this particular sentiment true for each one of us?

मुझे नींद आ रही है

तो हाथी कैसे सोते हैं?

We find out in Tulika books " I am so Sleepy"

Bahadur the baby elephant is very sleepy but has forgotten how to sleep. So he goes around asking his friends how to sleep. Each animal tells him to sleep in his or her style but Bahadur moves on as his memory tells him that

हाथी ऐसे नहीं सोते

Will Bahadur remember how he was supposed to sleep?Join this cute baby elephant in his journey through the forest meeting all the familiar characters like Shanmugam, Hutoxi etc.

Mommy tip- I always ask the kids to describe and interpret what they see in the pages. So if the Sun is painted yellow it means it ought to be morning and not evening as the evening sun is orange in our parts!

pic courtsey - Tulika Books

Ekki, Dokki, Shanmugam

Boo gifted the kids 2 delightful books- Ekki & Dokki & Snoring Shanmugam .

Now what's so delightful about them?

1. Simple text - short tale, yet long enough to go like a proper story wherein the characters pass through similar phases during onward and return journey and therefore gives opportunity to ask questions like- now what had ekki done for the mehendi bush? or what did ekki give the cow? Therefore lot of interactive reading. And the words are exceptionally alive- khrrrrrr..pshew... (snoring). Overall very reminiscent of Russian folk tales that we used to read!!

2. Illustrations- they are beautiful- colourful, patterned, rustic, amateurish, and very Indian . Even the pictures give opportunity to interact. In some pages only a portion of the animals are visible son one can ask lot of questions in making the kids guess which animal that is.

3. Character Nomenclature- I love the way each character is named and some names are really interesting -so obviously we can ask the kids again and again- what was the name of the horse (incidentally it was Hutoxi in the Shanmugam book and the kids love saying hutoxi over and over again)

4. Rhyming- Some pages have rhyming words like- lean, mean, brawny, tawny lion... good fun reciting them until the kids get the words & sequence right.

PS - in Ekki Dokki, Dokki loses her 2 hairs as she has been a bad girl. So greatly amused are the kids that their Dad has no hair!