Going to India, the book reading stopped, much to my disappointment. Probably, in a house with two young aunts, two or three uncles under thirty, kids in the alleyway playing and door to door salesmen selling rice, potatoes, onions and eggplants, the very hungry caterpillar never had a chance.
Unsurprisingly, Naina came back still highly disinterested in books. She still loves on safari, grudgingly accepts the Gruffalo as long as she can press the musical buttons and Doctor Seuss's Sleep Book lasts a page or two.
But her interest in "kahaani" is roaring. The oral tradition rather than the written tradition etc. Coming back, every night Naina wanted a different Barbie story. Another post! Then Doraemon stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon) (amazingly this show never came to Australia, but is one of the most popular manga comics for kids in India, so much so it is dubbed, into hindi). Then Hanuman stories. So after a futile series of attempts to read to N, we'd turn off the lights and begin proper story time.
N then learnt about Shrek, so Shrek and Donkey stories, then Shrek and Fiona, Dragon and Donkey and then this is our life where Dragon is Deepti and Donkey is me, St George and the Dragon (though honestly I don't know the story), The Hobbit and finally, Lord of The Rings, where all the bad dudes are Dragons and one of the characters (Legolas, the Archer, is renamed Sarva, the archer in Hindu mythology so Mummy Daddy, Naina and Sarva are fighting alongside Gandalf and Aragorn against Dragons at the Gates of Sauron whilst Frodo and Sam are fighting Gollum near the peak of Mt Doom).
I'm not sure what N thinks of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy (people don't die, they fall), but it has a 5 to 10 minute knock out effect. And for that I am grateful to Tolkein.
2 comments:
I think there's undue pressure to have parents spend educational time with their kids. Apparently, we're supposed to spend 30 mins a day speaking to our kids one-on-one, and 30 mins reading to them, and 30 mins exercising with them, and 30 mins inventing a time machine to do it all in. Kids will all catch up by school age, so don't worry.
I do find when Harriet is getting scrappy, I can always get her to stop what she's doing by "telling her a story". They aren't very good stories, but they seem to work, and leave me two hands free to accomplish other important things, like getting her dressed.
Yeah, stories are amazing. My only working remedy for Jinu's screaming midnight foot pain is the adventures of Graeme, the fire-engine from Besse, and his cast of stereotyped bagette-eating French town-mates.
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