We are going to a family wedding in India later in the year and I want to give my children an introduction to some of the stories from India and to some of the things that will be the same and some which will be different.
Drawing on its mythology and from its abundant wildlife there are a great many wonderful stories from India which will help readers of any age gain a sense of Indian history and culture. A good place to start is with the stories about the countryside and the animals in it. Many of the Indian myths are about animals and many of those animals still live in India today. Animal characteristics remain constant over the centuries even if there are many fewer of them and their habitat changes.
Gita Wolf’s Gobble You Up!, which is beautifully illustrated by Sunita in finger-painted artwork adapted from a traditional Meena art form, is the story of a scheming jackal who is so idle that he gives up hunting and instead uses trickery. The jackal’s best friend is a crane and it is he who the jackal first tricks into providing him with a feast of fish. In this cumulative story in the tradition of There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, the animals that the jackal eats can all be seen in his stomach – much to the delight of all young readers.
Joanna Troughton’s The Tiger Child is a version of a folk tale which explains why tigers eat their food uncooked. In this story the reason comes about because when the tiger child is sent to get some fire from the village he gets distracted and starts playing. By the time the game is over he has forgotten what he had been sent for… No wonder the tigers at home just ate their meat raw!
In a quite different idiom, Rudyard Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book, the story of the little boy Mowgli who is fostered by Father and Mother Wolf and grows up with all the animals as his playfellows, was first published over 100 years ago but it remains a vivid, albeit rather moralising picture of life in the forest. Written for his readers at home in England, Kipling memorably introduces animals including Baloo the Bear, Begheera the Black Panther, Shere Khan the Tiger, Riki Tiki Tavi the mongoose and Kai the Python. Through them the ‘man-cub’ Mowgli learns the law of the jungle.
Another way of giving a big-picture view of India through stories would be through Madhur Jaffrey’s Seasons of Splendour, illustrated by Michael Foreman. The collection of short stories, each of which Jaffrey introduces with anecdotes from her own life, provides an excellent introduction to Hindu beliefs and celebrations.
To bring this research for a visit up-to-date, Prodeepta Das’s Geeta’s Day: From Dawn to Dusk in an Indian Village takes a detailed look at Geeta’s life in an Indian village. From early morning worship with her grandmother through a school day and games with her friends afterwards to family dinner and bedtime, everything is recorded in Das’s excellent photographs. Much is familiar in terms of family relationships, friendships, school and play, but much is also different. In a related title, Prita Goes to India, Prodeepta Das uses the same technique but covers more ground in the story about a little girl visiting her family in India.
Do you have another favourite book about India to share with us? Email childrens.books@theguardian.com or get in touch on Twitter @GdnchildrensBks, where you can also ask The Book Doctor a question using #BookDoctor.
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Your suggestions:
Sayoni, on email
Picture books: Tiger on a Tree by Anushka Ravishankar (Tara), Excuse Me, Is This India? by Anushka Ravishankar (Tara), Elephants Never Forget by Anushka Ravishankar (Tara).
Chapter books: Moin and the Monster by Anushka Ravishankar (Duckbill), Timmi in Tangles by Shals Mahajan (Duckbill), Petu Pumpkin Tiffin Thief by Arundhati Venkatesh (Duckbill).
Middle-grade books: Vanamala and the Cephalopod by Shalini Srinivasan (Duckbill), Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula by Asha Nehemiah (Puffin), Book Uncle and Me by Uma Krishnamurty (Scholastic).
YA novels: Grasshopper’s Run by Siddharth Sharma (Scholastic), Queen of Ice by Devika Rangachari (Duckbill), Jobless Clueless Reckless by Revathi Suresh.
QuirkyDragon, on email
Jamila Gavin is a great author for books about India. The Surya trilogy is set both in India and England, during the Raj and Partition. In the first book, Jaspal and Marvinder, who are Sikhs, escape the violence and go to England to track down their father, who was studying there. And that’s just the beginning! The Wheel of Surya, The Eye of the Horse, The Track of the Wind. In Tales from India, Jamila Gavin retells some traditional Hindu legends, such as the creation of the world, and how Ganesh got his elephant’s head. This book is beautifully illustrated.
Richard, on email
I have always loved Listen and I’ll Tell You by Edward Korel, illustrated by Quentin Blake. It is a collection of Indian tales linked by a central tale: “tales within tales”.
