Wednesday, 4 March 2015

0 Bubble Ink : World Read Aloud Day : Post 3

The clue to the third book is part of this post and there will be more posts during the day and the answers have to submitted via this Google form. All details of the contest are here. All blog posts can be seen here.

Sandhya Renukamba is passionate about books and reading. She reviews books at SaffronTree and also at Women's Web.

Sandhya Renukamba shares her Read Aloud experience with us.

We’ve always had this thing about reading aloud in our home. I’ve always read aloud to my daughter, now almost 14. And now we take turns reading a book aloud, making it a shared experience. It began when she was just a little mite. Even when she wasn’t old enough to sit on my lap, I would
read out poetry to her, just any poetry. It didn’t matter what it was about, as she anyway couldn’t
understand it. English poetry and Marathi poetry. Just the cadence of the language falling on her
ears, the closeness of her mother at such times, was enough. She would become really still at times,
looking at me wide-eyed, and suddenly become all energized at times, waving her arms and legs
frantically, maybe in response to the feeling in my voice. For there is nothing like poetry to bring
about emotion. Later, when she was old enough to sit up, it were board books. Bright, colourful
ones. I probably didn’t use books with single words on the page for a long time – maybe not until she was trying to make sense of it herself. None of those fruits, vegetables, and alphabet books for us.
No sir. I continued using books in verse, books with a story, books that were often varied to the
touch. And once she could understand me, I somehow could not read them out to her in English. I
translated as I went on, instead, ‘reading’ to her in Marathi – our native tongue. As a result of which,
we had read books like Guess How Much I Love You, Are You My Mother, Cat In The Hat, etc., all told in Marathi along with original works in the language, until she was almost 3. So that when she joined her first school at the age of 2.5 years, she could not understand any English.


Once she got the hang of English, though, there was no stopping us. We have worked our way up the
years with many, many books that I have read aloud to us. While she became a proficient reader early, I would pick up some book just that little bit beyond her, and read it aloud. She would have
many questions as we went, and it gave us bonding time together. At one point, I even read aloud 
the entire Harry Potter series to her, something that will remain with us forever.


She is now old enough to read most YA books herself, the latest being The Book Thief. Yet, we have
kept at the reading aloud. We have recently read aloud Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister, and Surely
You’re Joking, Mr Feynman. We have also embarked upon the journey of reading the Agatha Christie books, most of which she has read aloud, while we listened. Our current read-aloud together is The Etymologicon, by Mark Forsyth, a laugh aloud funny book.

We are slowly coming full circle, looking forward to a lifetime of reading aloud together, whenever
we can.

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As part of the Bubble Ink - World Read Aloud Day Contest - I am leaving a clue for our favourite Read Aloud. Guess the name of the book, its author and illustrator.

The answers will have to be submitted as part of this Google form after all the posts go live during the day. Please do not post the answer as Facebook comments or blog post comments. Alternately, can also be emailed to bubbleink.writes@gmail.com. 


She writes of owls and wolves, and queens and princesses too

Picture books and chapter books and books about things true

Our book tells mom’s story, told to her little girl

What happened when she was little too – and see the love unfurl!

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