Tag dreaming big

My Bollywood Dream

jillrbennett 1 Comment

My Bollywood Dream
Avani Dwivedi
Walker Books

Friday nights are special for the little girl narrator and her family, who set off through the hectic city streets of Mumbai, destination the cinema. En route in their car, the girl uses her camera to capture the sights and sounds of the city and in so doing imagines a movie evolving all around her, with action,

dance sequences and songs. Seemingly she has aspirations of becoming a movie director.

Once at the cinema, she immediately feels the excitement building in the audience until a hush descends and the film begins. It’s a typical Bollywood love story with lots of Hindi songs and dancing but it’s not just the actors that dance. Caught up in the music, up leap members of the audience and start moving in time to the beat, united briefly, by the hypnotic rhythms.

Our narrator concludes in upbeat mood, saying, “Bollywood movies are filled with many dreams and adventures that I haven’t yet had. … but one day I know I can create my own.”

Author/illustrator Avani Dwivedi has based her debut picture book on her own experiences of growing up in Mumbai and she really captures the vibrancy of Mumbai streets although I found it rather more chaotic on my most recent visit than her portrayal here. She captures too the magic of those movies, as they were, as they are and probably always will be, hopefully though with more women directors

Martha Maps It Out

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Martha Maps It Out
Leigh Hodgkinson
Oxford Children’s Books

Young Martha might be small but her thoughts are anything but: her mind full of BIG things.
She absolutely loves drawing maps, creating them out of almost everything from the universe to her bedroom in the top floor flat in which she and her family live; she even makes maps of her thoughts, her questions and her dreams.

Through Martha’s cartographic creations readers share with the girl her entire world as she guides us through the pages and beginning in deepest space, we zoom inwards page by page to planet Earth with its awesome flora and fauna, her city, her street and community, her block of flats, her own home and her room.

From there we travel outwards once more through the thoughts, questions and those BIG dreams of a future where absolutely anything is possible: a life of discoveries … excitement,

adventure, wonder, not forgetting of course, love.

Leigh Hodgkinson is brilliant at presenting quirky details in her visuals and this book of Martha’s maps is absolutely alive with them. To these are added a wealth of labels that children will love to explore as they, one hopes, like Martha will share that sense of optimism and excitement about what the future might hold. Bursting with classroom (and home) potential, this splendidly upbeat, and unusual picture book is one to return to over and over wherever you are.

Most Marshmallows

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Most Marshmallows
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books

Imagine an entire world populated by marshmallows; it’s what story-inventor extraordinaire, Rowboat Watkins does, one way or another.
As he informs us at the outset, ‘Most marshmallows don’t grow on trees … or come from storks — or even Mars.’

Instead most are mostly born of marshmallow parents and reside in various kinds of homes. They do the kind of things you and I would do like celebrating birthdays, watching television, going to school – well the young ones do, and presumably the marshmallow teachers.

Lessons are taught in being squishy – yes even these already soft confections have to perfect their squishiness, and in standing in rows – I’m not a big fan of that one, but some educational establishments think it’s super important;

and most definitely they should come to understand why they cannot breathe fire (that art is the preserve of dragons).

Now happily there are some divergent thinking marshmallows with secret knowledge and it’s something SO important I’ll share it with you humans so you can make sure your little ones know too: ‘Marshmallows – all of them – can do or be anything they dare to imagine.’

Now I’ve always said how crucial the development of the imagination is in education, or anywhere really and now THANK YOU Rowboat for your affirmation of this, with the help of those malleable little confections of yours.

Superbly creative, funny and positively inspiring, this is a truly tasty tale to share with young humans. Rowboat’s mixed media photo images are absolutely terrific; his scenes of what marshmallows do – be that most, the exceptions, or indeed all, are quite brilliant.

I was partial to marshmallows before reading this book, I’m even more so now.