This year the Hindu festival of Diwali is from Nov. 5-9. Today marks its beginning. I first heard about the festival from watching a National Film Board film called Lights for Gita in their Talespinners Collection (a series of short films for 5-9 year olds.) In this story, eight year old Gita, who lives in Montreal is excited about celebrating Diwali in her new country, but something unexpected happens — an ice storm knocks out power in the city. What will Gita do? Will this holiday celebrated with lights now be ruined for her? Check out the DVD by ordering it, or finding it at your local library!
PaperTigers with its focus on India this issue has a number of book suggestions about Diwali given in a revisited Personal Views article by Chad Stephenson. Pooja Makhijani also refers to Diwali in her Personal Views article entitled “A String of Bright Lights.” She mentions her Diwali book picks in a post she did for the children’s lit b
log Chicken Spaghetti awhile back. In her post, she mentions how in northern India, Diwali is a celebration of the homecoming of Ram whose story can be found in her suggested picture book title Rama and the Demon King: An Ancient Tale from India by Jessica Souhami. I found Souhami’s book at my local library; it was a bilingual one in Somali and English! The story of Rama is found in the Hindu text The Ramayana which is a 24, 000 couplet poem written in Sanskrit by Valmiki around 300 B.C. My daughter’s view of this ancient story of Rama was rather quaint; she said she liked stories where the good guy (Rama) and a bad guy (Ravanna) fight it out over a woman (Sita) — although in this case, the bad guy is terrifying ten-headed demon!
Hope you have a happy Diwali this year! Poetry Friday is hosted by JoAnn at Teaching Authors.
Chad Stephenson, San Francisco Friends School librarian, has been working on an extensive school project about Diwali, the Hindu winter Festival of Light, celebrated on November 9 this year. In a ‘personal views’ piece he’s contributed to the PaperTigers website, Chad gives us the scoop on the celebration of Rama’s victorious return from Lanka with his kidnapped wife, Sita. His article is chock full of great Diwali reading recommendations, including Uma Krishnaswami’s award-winning Monsoon, illustrated by Jamel Akib, and Hanuman, by Erik Jendresen and Joshua M. Greene, illustrated by Li Ming. Here’s a PaperTigers review of another book on Chad’s list.
Canadian Rachna Gilmore’s Lights for Gita isn’t on his list, but it will shed yet more light on the Diwali’s real meaning: Gita’s difficulties settling into her life in Canada are exemplified by not being able to celebrate the holiday the same way she would have back home.
Just One More Book! is a regular contributor to the online Childrens Literature Monthly Journal, The Edge of the Forest. This information-packed online resource includes book reviews, interviews, the latest news from the online childrens/YA literature community and much more.
Our monthly audio segment is called Sounds from the Forest. This month’s segment includes an excerpt and some outtakes from our interview with Rachna Gilmore.
Mark speaks with author Rachna Gilmore about her writing as neither work nor play, but “plark”, writing from the child inside and authenticity in characters.
Books mentioned:
Wild Rilla
A Screaming Kind of Day
The Gita series: Lights for Gita, Roses for Gita, A Gift for Gita
Of Customs and Excise (adult fiction)
Participate in the conversation by leaving a comment on this interview, or send an email to [email protected].
Photo: www.RachnaGilmore.ca
Tags:A Gift for Gita, A Screaming Kind of Day, childrens books, Lights for Gita, Podcast, Rachna Gilmore, Roses for Gita, Wild RillaA Gift for Gita, A Screaming Kind of Day, childrens books, Lights for Gita, Podcast, Rachna Gilmore, Roses for Gita, Wild Rilla
Author: Rachna Gilmore
Illustrator: Alice Priestley
Published: 2003 Tilbury House Publishers
Original publisher: Second Story Press
ISBN: 0884481514 Chapters.ca Amazon.com
This carefully crafted tale of homesickness and hope combines the universal experience of long-awaited plans foiled by weather with the grief of a young girl pining for her far off home. This book leaves us with the powerful insight that its up to each of us to fill our darkness with light.
Other books mentioned:
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Alice Priestley,
childrens book,
Divali,
inner strength,
Lights for Gita,
Podcast,
Rachna GilmoreAlice Priestley,
childrens book,
Divali,
inner strength,
Lights for Gita,
Podcast,
Rachna Gilmore
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Rachna Gilmore’s interview really struck a chord with me. Like her I was an avid reader and fell in love with the character of Jo in Little Women, and read it repeatedly. I too had a desire to write, but knew that it would be frowned upon as being impractical. My father was an engineer, and because I too had an aptitude for math and science was steered to study engineering. I did so, until my senior year, when I changed my major. Also like Ms. Gilmore, I’ve been reluctant to write for all the reasons she listed,”fear of failure, inertia and procrastination.” Moreover, I like the approach she has to her work. She says that people generally associate tedium with the words writing and work, and frivolty with play. Therefore, she calls what she does a mixture of the two called “plark.” She says that this word better conveys both the pleasure, and the very real amount of effort needed to get it written, edited and published. The similarities did not end there. For years I’ve been criticized for reading children’s books and watching children’s programs. I really enjoy it, and thought I was the only one. It was one of the reasons I went into education. I felt that education was one place that my avid interest in children would fit. I also thought it would be a great place to do quasi-research. How better to learn about young people than to work with them all day every day? Gilmore was able to do this through using her two daughters as a sounding board for her ideas. The final thing that I found most interesting was the fact that she has written a very broad spectrum of books, from early readers to adult novels. I too, I must admit, was of a mindset that writing children’s books must be easier than writing adult books. I have to say that hearing her say that it is simply different and that good writing is good writing was mind blowing. I am no longer operating under the false assumption that because books are written for younger audiences that they are therefore easier to write. I’d liken it to what I thought before commencing teaching. I’d thought that teaching elementary school was easier than teaching high school. Well, I am a high school math teacher, and it is anything but easy. And, high school is supposed to be comprised of the most mature children! I can only imagine the wherewithal it must take to teach younger students. Yes, Ms. Gilmore’s interview certainly opened my eyes to a great many things. It was both interesting and enjoyable.