Literary Safari

I just finished reading Pooja Makhijani’s piece on the growing volume of South Asian literature for children and young adults. I identified with her perspective on several levels. In Here to Stay: South Asian Literature for Children and Teens, she writes:

As I was growing up, I would search library shelves in the hopes of finding a character “like me”. I never had much luck. … Fast forward to 2002. While browsing the young adult section in my local bookstore on my lunch break, a shocking pink cover caught my attention. It was Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier. … I was entranced. Desai Hidier had captured my hyphenated life – my very specific immigrant experience – quite accurately. I grew up in New Jersey and came to identify both as South Asian and as a writer in New York City.

My own childhood bursts with memories of Enid Blyton boarding school adventures, Kipling, Dickens, Austen, Bronte, and the Nancy Drew and Bobsey Tiwins series. Those were the books that awaited me at my school library in Pune. My “Indian” fix (even though I learned to become an avid reader in India) was limited to Amar Chitra Katha comic books.

The possiblities for today’s South Asian young adult reader seem infinite to me, in comparision to what was available to me back in the early 80s. And, I’m heartened to know that textbook publishers such as Holt, Rinehart, and Winston are undertaking extensive revisions of their Elements of Literature language arts texts to reflect the changing landscape of Asian (including South Asian authors).

Earlier this year, in fact, I conducted a literature review for them under the auspices of the Asian American Writers Workshop. This is an opportunity for which I am profoundly grateful because it brought so many of the books that Pooja mentions in her piece on Paper Tigers to my attention. In fact, one of the most exciting experiences for me was to visit the tiny, local library near my mother’s house in Bergen County, NJ and to be able to check out more than a dozen books for young readers by South Asian authors at one time!

It’s heartening to know that my children and nieces and nephews will have even larger and deeper bookshelves than my sister and I did.

I just purchased a set of books from Tulika, a Chennai-based publisher. They’re a gift for my friend’s newborn son. (He won’t be reading them for a while but they’re a wonderful addition to any child’s bilingual library.)

I spent the last hour running through 11 titles, each of which was more delightful than the next. My favorites were:

Norbu’s New Shoes, by Chewang Dorji Bhutia – set in Sikkim, Northeast India. A sweet story about a young boy’s new yellow shoes that get stolen by a monkey because they look like bananas!

The Mountain That Loved a Bird, by Alice McLerran – the moving story of an arid mountain whose life changes because of a bird named Joy. The illustrations by Stephen Aitken evoke the Himalayas and are gorgeous. (the website doesn’t do them justice)
A Face in the Water, by Libby Hathorn and illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy – the tale of a magical visit to the Taj Mahal.
Who Am I?, by Sakshi Jain – inventive picture book that introduces concepts of self for both young boys and girls.

I can’t wait to read some more … Check out their entire catalog.

I’m finally (finally!) reading The Da Vinci Code. I put it off for so long, always telling myself I had something else or better to read. Bottom line: I can’t put it off anymore.

I’m trying to put my finger on that quality of the book which makes it … so compelling. There’s something about the pace and tempo … and the depth of research about art. Plus the whole puzzle solving challenge.

I’m reading it slowly though, not at the frantic pace at which I expected to. Let’s call it delayed gratification!