The Second Person Short Story
We haven’t ever worked on the second-person short story, which is what made this writing workshop particularly interesting for me! I love it when I get to work with something new at a guest session!
Michelle D’costa conducted a detailed session, introducing the three narrative perspectives and focussing on the second person narrator. From common misconceptions about the second-person narrator to hands-on writing exercises, Michelle covered a lot of ground in the course of one short hour.
We read a mentor text, explored how we can write in second-person, and discussed a few things to keep in mind when we write a short story. I especially like it when guests I invite reinforce ideas I’m teaching! Here are a few things Michelle mentioned, for instance!
- Avoid clichés
- Be as specific as you can, both for setting, and for character
- Use all the five senses–smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch
- Show, don’t tell
- Avoid head-hopping
We worked on paying attention to detail with an oral exercise for which Michelle showed us a picture of a man. Michelle emphasised the importance of describing what is actually visible rather than making assumptions. Show us what we can see; let the reader make assumptions!
With this, our third guest session, we’re now hurtling towards the end of yet another writing programme. How many courses have I conducted? I have now officially lost count. And I love that.
Dum Dum to the Rescue & Yet More Adventures of Little Shambu
Did you read Shikari Shambu? I did, and I loved each silly adventure. That’s why we’re reading yet another Little Shambu book at my book club. We read Strangus Derangus in April 2024, In the Bear’s Den in November 2024, and it’s time to read the last one–Dum Dum to the Rescue.
I enjoyed all these stories for their silliness and simplicity, as well as the lovely illustrations. An urban child’s interactions with animals may be few and far between, but there are a range of hilarious stories in store for us in this collection.
Role Play
Any book that is rich in dialogue is perfect for role play. Helping children recognise when characters begin to speak and when they stop, beginning to recognise speech marks and paragraphs … all this is part of a book club!
Animal Encounters
Have you ever had a fun/frightening experience with an animal? A monkey in your neighbourhood? Or a snake in your school? I’d love to know! We will also try to write a small poem about it!
Listening Activity
Bringing the four language skills together is an important part of language acquisition, and there are so many animal stories we can listen to online! Let’s see how much we can understand as we listen to an audio recording of an age-old animal tale.
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Little Shambu is a delightful character, and the themes of this book are perfect for 7- and 8-year-olds!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Mystery of the Missing Geometry Boxes
Who doesn’t love a good mystery? When geometry boxes begin to go missing, the AKA Detective Club finally has a new mystery to solve! But things always go missing in schools, don’t they? What’s the big deal? When a pattern begins to emerge, however, the young detectives know that something is fishy. Surely, no one would want more than one geometry box. And is there a reason why only Yuga geometry boxes are being stolen?
The Mystery of the Missing Geometry Boxes is a lighthearted mystery, funny and engaging. I look forward to introducing it to my book club!
Detective Club
AKA stands for Aarav-Karthik-Asha, or Asha-Karthik-Aarav, depending on whom you ask. What would your detective club be called? Would you have a password and a secret code? Let’s make one together!
Geometry Boxes
I enjoy linking reading with other activities! I’m not yet sure if it will be exciting, but we’ll look at using the tools in our geometry boxes to create art of our own. Let’s see what we can come up with!
School Mystery
Mystery is one of the most satisfying genres to read, and quite an exciting genre to write too! At Read, Write, Explore, one class every two weeks is devoted to creative writing, so once we’ve read The Mystery of the Missing Geometry Boxes, we will attempt to write a mystery story of our own. What mystery could take place in our school? How would we solve it?
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The Mystery of the Missing Geometry Boxes is the second book in a series featuring the AKA Detective Club. The joy of a series is that if children like one book, they’re likely to hunt for and get the others that feature the same characters.
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Saving the Sun Dragon
We read Rise of the Earth Dragon, the first book in the Dragon Masters series, nearly four years ago! It was another of those books that set children off on a reading journey because there’s a whole series to devour.
That’s why we’re reading Saving the Sun Dragon next month. It’s the perfect reading level; it’s imaginative, features driven characters, and has a good bit of adventure in it!
Colouring Pages
I love it when authors share fun activities on their websites! As we read Saving the Sun Dragon, I’ll ask parents to print a few sketches that we will colour together in class!
Create a Dragon
We’ve read about an earth dragon; we’re reading about a sun dragon. What other dragons can we create? What is its name? What powers does it have?
Diary of a Dragon Master
If you were a dragon master, what would one day in your life look like? We’ll explore a few ideas and then get writing!
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Like I’ve said before, reading a series is a great way to get children hooked to reading! The Dragon Masters series is a lovely introduction to fantasy and adventure, and it promises to be a fun book to read together!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Dear Mr. Henshaw
I’ve said this dozens of times: I love epistolary novels. I made a video about a few favourites for World Post Day 2021, I love doing letter-writing activities at workshops, and I’ve written an epistolary novel of my own.
When we read Dear Mr. Henshaw for the first time at my book club, I knew it would be a book I would introduce time and time again. So come June, we’ll be rereading this delightful book at Read, Write, Explore!
Leigh Botts writes to his favourite author, Boyd Henshaw, and in the beginning, he doesn’t get a reply. Later, he gets a printed response, rather than a handwritten one, which is almost as disappointing. When he is in the sixth grade, however, he receives a proper letter, which he needs for his author report, and this is the beginning of a funny, moving series of letters he writes about himself, his school and family. As we read Leigh’s letters, we get to know not just him but Mr. Henshaw too. I love it!
Questions
The questions Leigh asks Mr. Henshaw set the ball rolling, and this will lead us to our first activity with the book. If the children had to write an author report, what questions would they ask? And if they don’t like the responses they receive, what will they do?
Taking this idea further, I would love for the children to write to their favourite writers and see whether they receive replies!
Other Scenarios
Even if the children haven’t read The Diary of a Young Girl, most have heard of Anne Frank. Using Dear Mr. Henshaw, Anne’s diary and a few others, I would love for the children to come up with other scenarios in which a story in the form of letters could work. Why would two characters write to each other? And how would the story progress?
Letters
At Read, Write, Explore, one class every two weeks is devoted to writing. Naturally, as we read Dear Mr. Henshaw, we will write letters. This time, I would love for the children to write real letters to one another and post them too. I’ll guide them through a little letter-writing activity, following which I will encourage them to write whatever they want. Each time I work with letters, I realise that many children have no idea what a stamp is or what purpose a letterbox serves. And that makes the whole process even more fun!
Join a programme!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Lights, Camera, Action!
Lights, Camera, Action! was a whirlwind introduction to filmmaking, one which I thoroughly enjoyed. I know next to nothing about filmmaking, making this guest session all the more exciting for me. What an informative, detailed session it was!
We began by watching a short film in French, Detour by Michel Gondry. Samina Mishra, our guest for the evening, asked us what we thought of the film and then we revisited a few details from a filmmaker’s eye.
What goes into mise en scène, or the frame of a film? What about cinematography? What does one pay attention to? Sound? Editing? What else?
After looking at a range of elements from setting to costumes, effect sounds to editing, Samina left us with a writing exercise in which she asked us to write a single shot. With clear examples, she asked us to pay attention to the following things as we wrote:
- Will we see the exterior/interior? What time of day is it?
- What kind of shot will it be? A long shot or a close-up?
- How is the scene set?
- What is the camera angle?
- What do we hear?
- Does the camera move or wait until the whole shot is over?
It was unfair to ask Samina to pack it all into an hour, and we did overshoot, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable session nonetheless. Here’s to many more!
Boo-Boo Investigates
We read Boo-Boo the Eco-Warrior by Tanushree Podder a few months ago, and my book club enjoyed it. For one, it’s easy to read because of the way the text is laid out. For another, the stories in the book are simple and engaging. That’s why we will be reading another book featuring this friendly ghost—Boo-Boo Investigates.
Forest Experiences
As Boo-Boo lives in the forest, we will listen to some forest sounds and write what comes to mind. What can you see? What do you hear? What do you think you would be able to smell? While we don’t write much at my book club for ages seven and eight, I do like to work with a little creative writing, an introduction of sorts, which will prepare the children for other writing activities later.
Mysteries
If you had to solve a mystery, what clues would you look for? As we discuss that, we will also do an activity in which we try to identify the pugmarks various animals make. Paying attention to detail is part of being a good investogator!
Word Games
Playing word games is always fun! We’ll do a spelling bee and unscramble a few words from the book as a fun way to revisit the vocabulary we pick up as we read.
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Reading a series is a great way to get children hooked to reading! Characters grow to be friends, and children are eager to find out what other adventures these familiar characters go on. Boo-Boo is one of those characters my book clubbers loved meeting!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Agassi and the Great Cycle Race
Agassi and the Great Cycle Race is a brand-new book that I’m eager to introduce to my book club. I read it not very long ago, and it’s such a rollicking read that I’m sure it will be fun!
What's in a name?
Agassi hates his name. In fact, he prefers to be called by his other name – Joel.
As Agassi and the Great Cycle Race is the first book we will be reading, we will do several name-related activities. If your parents had named you after their favourite sportspeople, what would your name be? If they had combined their names to create one for you, what options would they have had? And finally, I’d love to know what the stories behind their names are. What led to the choosing of their names?
But, then ...
We’ve played “Fortunately, Unfortunately” at several editions of my book club. It’s time to do something different! When we play “But then …”, each child makes two sentences, not one. Agassi needed a cycle and there was one in the attic. But then, it was falling to pieces, so he needed another solution. A solution came his way in the form of a cycle from Manoj. But then …
Let’s create a story of our own!
Humour Writing
What are the elements of humour writing? Can we craft a funny story of our own!
Creative writing is an integral part of Read, Write, Explore, so during our writing session with Agassi and the Great Cycle Race, we will attempt to write a humorous story of our own.
Let's Read!
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Silly Billy books that have been published so far, and I’m waiting to read this one with my book clubbers!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Monster Hunters
We’re rereading The Monster Hunters by Parinita Shetty at my book club in June 2025!
Abhay is convinced that his mother has eyes at the back of her head. She knows everything and sees everything. Yet, she does not seem to believe that there are monsters in every child’s room! Why can’t she see them?
It’s time for Abhay and Nitya to get to work. They must find the monsters. In fact, they decide they will go one step further. For a school project where they have to narrate a real-life story, they will hunt down a monster and talk about the experience.
I love books with driven characters, determined to prove something against all odds, and Abhay and Nitya are perfect. The book had me chuckling, shaking my head, but rooting for the characters anyway – and what more could I ask for from a book?
Monster Games
I love monster games! The wonderful thing about a monster is that it can be anything you want it to be. It could be tiny or huge, one-eyed or a thousand-eyed. As we read this book and imagine monsters of our own, we’ll also play with the fun illustrations, spotting monsters on each page!
Under My Bed
I’ve played this game before, and I love it each time. It’s a little make-believe game, where each child says something along these lines, “Oh no! I can see something under my bed! It looks like the eye of a monster! Whew. It’s just an old torch.”
What will I ‘find’ under the beds of the children who join my reading programme?
What would you need?
We had so much fun exploring The Absent Author at an earlier edition of my reading programme that I realised (again) how much fun it is to work with investigation, hunting for clues and finding evidence. What would your monster-hunting kit consist of? Do you need bicycles and helmets and nets? Or do you need something else altogether? And finally, what would you do if you found a monster?
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We’re rereading The Monster Hunters because we had so much fun with it when my book club read it in 2021! Some of those who were with me then are now in my writing programme for older children; I’m looking forward to introducing this book to a fresh batch of readers!
Registrations are now closed for the June-July 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Cartooning with Vineet Nair
What makes a cartoon different from a regular drawing? What is easier to draw? What do you think is important when you are drawing a cartoon?
We had such an enjoyable workshop on cartooning with Vineet Nair, comic book illustrator and Art Director of Tinkle! The first rule, which I loved, but which the participants struggled with was Don’t mute yourself! Speak! The entire session was interactive, with everyone eager to show what they were drawing.
For me, what made the session stand out was the focus on how simple cartooning can be! Identify the major shape and then modify it. Exaggerate the details to bring in the emotion and the humour!
We began with humans, went on to animals and finally looked at cartoonifying objects. I enjoyed the whole session! The image above is just a collage of all the cartoons Vineet drew during the session. The children drew so many more!
A few interesting tips Vineet left us with:
- Pause animation movies to practise cartooning and sketching.
- Experiment with simple shapes and exaggerated features.
- Try drawing simple everyday objects with emotions and expressions.
Details about our next guest session will be up very soon!
The Astoundingly True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev
It’s been nearly four years since we read The Absolutely True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev by Ken Spillman. We had fun reading it, and I hope The Astoundingly True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev will be as much fun with a new group of book clubbers!
Dev is a highly imaginative character. The smallest things set him off on the wackiest of daydreams. A question asked during his geography lesson sends him daydreaming to Antarctica. A conversation about volcanoes, and he lands up in Whakaari. Where can our book club escapades take us?
Where are you?
Physically, Dev may be in an autorickshaw, but his mind is far away in New Zealand!
What was the last place you read about? What if you were transported there? What do you think you would do, see or eat?
Daydreaming Adventures
Picture prompts always spark the imagination. I will give each child a different picture and we will write the outline of a rudimentary story. Story worksheets are great scaffolding tools to begin to write stories of our own!
Travel Adventures
What is the best holiday you’ve ever been on? What made it special? Can you tell us a story about it? Or better still, can you write an email to a friend about?
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Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday
Some time ago, we read Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days, and although it is longer than most of the other books I choose for Read, Write, Explore, we enjoyed it. It’s funny and engaging, and there’s so much we can do with the book!
Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday is no different. Like in Lucky Girl, Nimmi finds herself eating (and sharing) all kinds of … interesting … foods. How can she admit that the chocolate-like things she distributes are jowar banana bites?
The hapless Nimmi finds herself in one coil after another as she navigates her way through a birthday that is nothing short of bizuper.
Portmanteau Words
I love portmanteau words! When we put two words together—like bizarre and super to get bizuper—we have a portmanteau word. We’ll do a quick quiz about words that have come into being in exactly this way, before we go on to invent a few of our own.
Word Games
How can we read a book about Scrabble and not play word games of our own? I’ll create a puzzle based on the book, following which I’ll ask the children to create word puzzles for the others to solve too.
Funny Poem
Writing humour is always difficult, but a birthday that doesn’t quite end up like we expected it to is a great prompt! We’ll work with rhyme and meter, and then we’ll go on to writing a funny poem of our own.
Join a programme!
Read, Write, Explore combines the fun of a book club with an introduction to creative writing. One class every two weeks is devoted to writing of some sort, making the programme perfect for creative children who aren’t yet committed to writing.
Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Chocolate Touch
The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling is an old book, unlike most of the others I select for my book clubs. Its copyright dates back to 1952! And that’s not the only thing that makes it different from the books I usually choose. Another important distinction is that it has a clear moral, something I usually avoid.
But the story is such fun! Plus, it’s about chocolate, so it’s already a win, isn’t it?
John Midas loves chocolate. He can eat it all the time. Or so he thinks. It is only when everything that touches his lips turns to chocolate that he begins to realise that there might just be a limit to the amount of chocolate he can eat.
At first, no one believes him. How could they? He has to be lying. How can everything he puts in his mouth turn to chocolate? That’s absurd!
Eventually, however, everyone realises he is telling the truth. Even the doctor has no choice but to believe him. The question is, of course, what can he do about it except to look at him as an exciting specimen?
With all the Midas touch references, The Chocolate Touch is both unique and familiar. It’s perfectly paced and an utter delight. Here’s what we’ll do as we read the book at my reading programme.
Colouring Coins
John acquires the chocolate touch when he discovers an odd looking coin. What odd coins can we find?
I love combining non-reading activities with reading ones. I remember how much fun it used to be to put a piece of paper on top of a coin and shade with pencil. I would love for the children to find some unique coins – old ones or new – and see how they look on paper!
We’re rereading this one at my book club, and I can’t help but remember how a child told me he was going to use an antique coin from 1992!
What else?
Toothpaste. A trumpet. Cutlery. A pencil. What else do you put in your mouth?
Make a list and then, for each one, imagine a different sort of magic. I chewed my nails and they turned to plastic! I put my handkerchief in my mouth and it turned to dust! What else?
Invent your own!
Invent your own chocolate! Give it a name, design a wrapper and tell us what makes it unique. What would you put in it?
Look at this wonderful email exchange that took place the first time I did this activity!
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Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944
We’ve read one book from the I Survived series at Read, Write, Explore before—I Survived the California Wildfires, 2019. This one, I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944, was written way before that, and from what I can tell, it’s one of Lauren Tarshis’s most popular books. I thought long and hard before choosing to read this book with 9- and 10-year-olds. The horrific events of the second world war don’t make for easy reading, and like I’ve said before, it’s always more difficult to gauge the mood of my book clubbers online than offline.
Yet, it’s an important story, and while I wonder what conversations will be triggered by the book, I’m looking forward to reading it at Read, Write, Explore.
Symbols
Different symbols mean different things. The star and the swastika on the cover, for instance, are relevant. What other symbols do we know, and what do they stand for?
A Period in History
What period in history do you know well? Children (and adults too!) often know trivia about obscure things. Dinosaurs, ancient Egypt, the Aztecs … I want each book clubber to talk to me about a period in history that fascinates them!
Writing an 'I Survived' Story
Taking the same thing forward, we will attempt to write a rudimentary work of historical fiction, with the emphasis on the word fiction. What obstacles do you think a character in the period of your choice would face? How would they survive them?
Join a programme!
Read, Write, Explore combines the fun of a book club with an introduction to creative writing. One class every two weeks is devoted to writing of some sort, making the programme perfect for creative children who aren’t yet committed to writing.
Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Adventures of Mooli and the Blue-Legged Alien
We’ve read the other two Mooli books at my book club (although that was before my current book clubbers were old enough to join), and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed them! The Adventures of Mooli and the Blue-Legged Alien is just as much fun, or perhaps even more fun! A lovely combination of wacky adventures and a mystery, it’s a book that is imaginative and funny, in addition to being just the right length for my book club for ages seven and eight!
Aliens
How do you think an alien would look? Would it have blue legs? What powers would it have? Use your imagination to draw and describe an alien!
WAYOUTS
I’ve done this with my other Mooli books too; we’re going to do it again! If you were to take part in WAYOUTS—coming up with the best of the World’s As Yet Original and Untried Stunts—what would you do? What can you do that is completely new?
Using Toys
At the very end of the book, Mooli’s mother, Gita Krishnan, uses a toy aeroplane in a completely unexpected way. What toy of yours do you think you could use imaginatively?
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Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
We’ve read lots of Asha Nehemiah’s books at my book clubs! Take a look:
- Trouble with Magic
- A Pinch of Magic
- The Adventures of Mooli and the Sticker Trickster
- The Adventures of Mooli and the Bully on Wheels
- The Mystery of the Silk Umbrella
- The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula
Which of these have you read, and which one is your favourite?
The Paradise Flycatcher
It’s impossible to write about The Paradise Flycatcher without mentioning the gorgeous illustrations. I felt the same way about The Golden Eagle, which we read at my book club some time ago. Krishna Bala Shenoi’s art work, right through the book, is stunning, and if for nothing else, I would have picked The Paradise Flycatcher for one of my reading programmes just for the pictures! (On an aside, I loved his work in Friends Behind Walls too, which I used at another reading programme.)
We read it a few years ago; we’re rereading it in April 2025!
Mitalee is distraught. Shikar, aka Snowdrop, a white-headed squirrel, has disappeared! She knows Chintu and Arjun are behind this disappearance, but knowing that is not enough. She must save Snowdrop before something dreadful happens. The good thing is that she has help from a bunch of feathered friends – Bongo, Blackpie, Senora, Kabul … And the adventure begins.
Animal Stories
Animal stories are a delight, and creative writing is an important part of Read, Write, Explore.
We will begin with the characters in the story, like Bongo the drongo and Blackpie the magpie. We’ll create full-fledged (pun intended) bird characters of our own, giving each one a name. We will also work a clear idea of the problem and the solution in a story of our own.
Quiz on Idioms
The Paradise Flycatcher is full of bird idioms, so we will do a quiz based on these idioms as well as a few more!
Descriptive Writing
In a book with such stunning pictures, we must do an activity based on the illustrations. We’ll play a game, using our imagination to describe pictures of our choice in an interesting way.
Join a programme!
Read, Write, Explore combines the fun of a book club with an introduction to creative writing. One class every two weeks is devoted to writing of some sort, making the programme perfect for creative children who aren’t yet committed to writing.
Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Clockwala’s Clues
We’re going to read my hOle book, The Clockwala’s Clues at my book club in April 2025! I’ve done many author events based on the book, but they’ve all been in-person sessions. Looking forward to my first online session with the book.
Puzzles
Jasmine and Sheba love puzzles. Do you? Can you solve a set of puzzles about clocks and time?
Tongue Twisters
If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?
How fast can you say that? Have fun with Clockwala Uncle’s tongue twisters, trying to say each tongue twister faster and faster every time you try!
Idiom Quiz
There are so many idioms about time! Let’s race against time and try to beat the clock as we do a quiz on idioms related to watches, clocks and the time.
Join a book club!
The Clockwala’s Clues is part of a lovely series of books–the hOle books. Each edition of my book club begins with a book from the series. This one was shortlisted for the Neev Book Award in 2021, and I’m waiting to read it with my book club!
Registrations are now closed for the April-May 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
My Year in Workshops – 2024
As someone who loves routine and predictability, it’s amazing how unpredictable my workshops are, each year! Teacher training workshops took me to Indapur, Goa, Satara, Talegaon, Nagpur and Beed, in addition to schools all over Pune. This also meant that I did multiple book club and writing sessions from hotel rooms and cafés, just like last year.
I also continued to run my in-person writers’ club at St. Mary’s School, Pune, although I often have to run those sessions online too because I travel for work.
With my book clubs, I read 39 books; with my writing courses, I created three e-magazines; it was quite a year!
Book Clubs
My book clubs are always rewarding. Bringing books to children is such a joy! With the little ones, it’s heart-warming to see how they slowly start reading more and more fluently. With the older ones, conversations become more nuanced, and the activities we do get more creative and imaginative.
With ages seven and eight, I read 22 books (we’re in the middle of our 23rd one), and with ages nine and ten, I read 16. I had enough registrations to run every batch that I scheduled, unlike in 2023. I met children from several parts of the world, and even ran a special batch for children from Europe and Dubai!
Something else that stood out for me last year is that four writers volunteered to visit my book club and talk to the children – Chrissie Sains, Vibha Batra, Stuti Agarwal and Lubaina Bandukwala. It was such a treat!
I have no idea how long my online book clubs will continue to run. Now that the pandemic is long past, parents are keen to reduce their children’s screen time—and rightly so! But each year brings new adventures, so let’s see what 2025 has in store for me!
Creative Writing
Some of the children who joined my book club aged seven are now eleven-year-olds, part of my writing programmes! It’s been lovely watching them grow and blossom. Over the last couple of years, I’ve met a few of my online students for the first time, but there are still dozens I’ve never met!
I ran six online writing programmes in the year for ages nine to seventeen. A parent urged me to launch a batch for ages 15 to 17 for the first time, and I did, but it’s tough for teenagers to commit to the kind of writing my courses demand. Exams, school events, sports … everything gets in the way.
As usual, I had six guests visit my programme, and each one was wonderful.
We created three e-magazines, which is something I started doing to encourage children to work on feedback they receive and edit their work to the best of their abilities. At my online writing programmes, we created issue 4 and issue 5 of WORDS, and at St. Mary’s School, we created the very first issue of THE WRITE PLACE. New issues of both e-magazines will be out soon!
I have new online workshops beginning every alternate month, and I’m always open to looking at offline workshops should schools require them. If you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Meanwhile, a new year of workshops has already begun!
Boo-Boo the Eco-Warrior
I don’t like horror stories, but what about stories featuring a friendly, helpful ghost? Boo-Boo the Eco-Warrior is one of those! Written almost like a series of short stories, this book by Tanushree Podder is a child-friendly read, made all the more engaging by the use of varied font sizes and, of course, pictures. Boo-Boo the ghost, along with her human friend Tanya, embark on a set of adventures including a rescue mission and justice for an old man employed by a cruel shopkeeper. I’m sure my book club will enjoy this one!
A Ghostly Friend
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a friend who can turn invisible at will? What adventures would you go on together? Tanya and Boo-Boo have some answers, but I know that my book clubbers will have more!
Newspaper Bags
Schools often use the phrase “art integration”, something that is an integral part of a book club. Tanya makes newspaper bags in an attempt to save the environment. We’ll do that too, in class!
Eco-Warriors
A few ghosts are forced to move to another tree because the tree they inhabit is cut down. Is there anything we can do to save the environment? As children, do my book clubbers think they have agency? Can they make a difference? Let’s find out!
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I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I will say it again—if you want to create readers, start early! The most common reasons children give for not reading are:
- It’s no fun!
- I don’t have the time!
- It’s boring!
A book club is a great way to counter all three!
Registrations are now closed for the February-March 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Misfit Madhu
We’re rereading Misfit Madhu at my book club! It was a favourite when I read it two years ago, although it’s longer and slightly more complex than the books we usually read. I’m waiting to read it again!
Madhu makes an app that goes viral. At first, she can’t quite believe it, but soon, she begins to bask in the attention. Things quickly go wrong, though, and Madhu must decide between what she wants and what’s right. Here’s what we’ll do as we read the book!
Apps
When we read Cricket for the Crocodile, we did an activity where we made our own games. One child made a rudimentary online game, which made me wonder: what apps do children feel they need? While we won’t create an app (I know nothing about coding!), we will try to design one, coming up with a name, a purpose and details of what the app can do, no matter how farfetched.
What would you do if ...?
What would you do if you were in Madhu’s place? What about if you were in her best friend Noor’s place?
Misfit Madhu sparks all kinds of conversation topics from the meaning of friendship to doing what is right. At several stages in the story, we’ll stop and reflect on what we would do if we were in the characters’ places. Giving the children similar situations, we’ll engage in a little role play too.
Story-Based Games
As writing is an important component of Read, Write, Explore, we’ll explore a different kind of story – something that could work as a story-based game. We have just one class to work with writing, so we’ll begin with each child discussing a story-based game they enjoy playing, bringing the idea down to setting, characters, plot and structure. Following that, we will try to change the characters and setting and see whether we can create the rough outline of a story-based game of our own.
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Registrations are now closed for the February-March 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom
Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom opens with the oracle at Delphi predicting the fall of the Titans. The future is misty and the oracle’s glasses are foggy, so she can’t quite tell what will happen. What lies ahead? Dancers? Oh, no. Danger. Danger lies ahead.
On that humorous note, we begin the story of Zeus, who has no idea that he isn’t an ordinary ten-year-old boy. Sure, it often feels like the lightning is after him, but then, that isn’t possible, is it? It’s a coincidence. It has to be. Except for the fact that each time lightning strikes him, he hears a voice saying, “You are the one.”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom, which made me sure that my book club would love it too. Adventure, suspense and a good dose of mythology make it a fun read!
Chip English
At the temple in Delphi, Zeus discovers a rock chip, which speaks to him in Chip Latin. What does this mean? Move the first letter of a word to the end and add -ip to it. So, for instance, take the word lion. It becomes ion-lip. I loved p-language so much as a child that I’m sure it will be fun playing with Chip English at my book club!
Homophones
“Flea!” say the Harpies. At least, that’s what Zeus understands. He’s nettled. He’s not a flea! He may be small, but not a flea, certainly! It takes a while for him to realise that they mean ‘flee’ not ‘flea’. This is the perfect context to introduce homophones to my book club. We’ll see how many homophones we can think of, and try to see what sort of confusion these homophones could create.
Friends
As a child, Zeus’s friends are a nymph, a bee and a goat. What unusual friends do you think would be useful? In what ways would they help you, and in what ways could you help them?
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Registrations are now closed for the February-March 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Mini’s Questions
We read Mini’s Books a while ago, and it was fun! As a couple of book clubbers who read it with me have already signed up for the February 2025 edition, I decided to read another book from the series. The familiarity of characters always makes for a fun reading experience!
Children have more questions than adults can answer, and soon enough, adults get fed up of answering their endless questions. But what if questions can help solve a mystery? Would parents sit up and take notice?
Like the rest of the Mini series, Mini’s Questions is a simple, early reader chapter book that brings pictures and text together in an engaging way!
Questions
Often, when I ask children if they have any questions, they have none. But what about if I give them a picture and a few guiding questions? Let’s see what other questions they have! A curious mind leads to all kinds of creative exercises!
Mysteries
What questions do you think you need to ask to solve a mystery? Do you think people would answer them honestly?
As we read, I will give the children a simple mystery to solve, with a few basic clues. Let’s see if they can use their detective skills to solve the mystery!
Colour the story!
The Mini series and the Lucky series are fun because the pictures are meant to be coloured! We’ll spend just a little time colouring in class too. It’s always fun!
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Registrations are now closed for the February-March 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Kushti Kid
Kushti Kid is another lovely book by Vibha Batra, one that I know my book club will enjoy! For me, the challenge when it comes to introducing books published by Scholastic India is that there’s no ebook available, which often means that I have to restrict my book clubbers to children living in India, or at least children who have access to books in India.
Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to reading this with my book clubbers!
Sport
What is kushti? Looking at the cover image, do you feel the girl stands a chance? Why, or why not?
As Kushti Kid is the first book we will be reading next month, I would love for my book clubbers to tell me what sports they play and watch.
Also, since I like to link reading to other activities too, we’ll do a quick listening exercise on sport as well.
Sportspeople
A discussion on sport will also be the perfect prompt for the children to talk to us about sportspeople they love! I’d love to hear any sports trivia they may want to share, in addition to a little bit about why they admire a particular player.
Book Review
Writing is an important part of Read, Write, Explore. One class every two weeks is devoted to writing of some sort. With Kushti Kid, we will work with book reviews. Is a review a summary? A synopsis? Often, children say “yes”. Every so often, I like to work with book reviews to help balance fact and opinion in an engaging way.
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Read, Write, Explore is an ongoing reading programme that brings together books and writing. It’s a great way for children to engage with stories, express opinions and get creative. I’ve been running the programme for four years now, and it’s always fun!
Registrations are now closed for the February-March 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Other books by Vibha Batra we’ve read and enjoyed at my book club:
The Art of Laughter
Every time I begin a new batch of my writing programme, it feels like the weeks fly by! This edition is nearly at an end, marked by our third and last guest session of the season.
This session was conducted by Arundhati Venkatesh, author of a number of humorous books. My book clubbers have read several – Bookasura (which we’re reading again in December 2024), Koobandhee, Petu Pumpkin: Freedom Fighter, Petu Pumpkin: Tiffin Thief and Petu Pumpkin: Cheater Peter.
Step by step, Arundhati led us through the writing of a humorous story. To begin with, if you want to write humour, you must enjoy reading funny stuff. This is something I say often—if you don’t read, you cannot write. I don’t restrict my definition of reading to fiction, though. We consume content in all kinds of ways, including memes and blog posts!
Secondly, the core of humour is truth, something that I completely agree with. An important idea that I’m glad Arundhati stressed is that the target of a humorous story should always be the person in power rather than someone who has no power or is helpless. The joke must be on the people who have authority. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, when you make fun of people in power, that is satire. When you make fun of people without power, that’s bullying!
Having said that, Arundhati also came back to the idea that you can write about anything at all through the lens of humour. Her books are a great example – she has written humorous books about science, mathematics and the constitution!
Arundhati shared a handy list of ideas to get going with our own humorous stories. I hope at least some of the participants put her ideas into practice and write a story!
PodLab with Menaka Raman
At the Neev Literature Festival 2023, I watched Menaka Raman conduct a session on character development, and I knew I wanted to invite her to my writing programme. She did a session for us today, and what an engaging session it was! Her lively teaching style made the workshop a treat.
This workshop was my twenty-sixth guest session, and my very first one on podcasting. Menaka took us through the basics—from what a podcast is to what equipment we need to record a podcast.
In some ways, a podcast is like Netflix for audio – it has episodes that are recorded and that you can listen to in your own time. That’s what makes it different from radio, which you have to catch only when it is broadcast!
Through a series of writing exercises, Menaka helped us experience firsthand the process of podcast creation. Asking the right questions, choosing a theme, taking our time editing—all of it is important.
Finally, Menaka reminded us that we don’t need any fancy equipment to create a podcast. Recording on a phone is easy enough, and to edit, we can use Spotify, Audacity, iMovie and Garage Band. Special effects add to the experience of podcasts, and BBC, for instance, has 33,000 sound effects that you can use for free.
It was a rewarding session, and as often happens, I think I learned as much as the children did!
In the Bear’s Den
Little Shambu is such fun! I read In the Bear’s Den and Other Adventures of Little Shambu some time ago, and at my book club, we read the first book in the Little Shambu series earlier this year. Short stories are fun! I’m looking forward to reading more of this young animal lover’s adventures with my book club!
Dialogue
Role play for dialogue reading is something that I repeat frequently at my book club. Paying attention to paragraph structure and punctuation, and understanding how we know who says what is an important step towards creating stories as the children grow older!
Drawing an Animal
When we read Ostrich Girl, we discovered that drawing an ostrich isn’t actually very difficult. What about a bear? We’ll draw a bear together and perhaps a couple of other animals too!
Unscramble
I know that unscrambling words may not be very easy for my book clubbers, but I’m happy to give it a shot. The theme of animals will stay the same—let’s see how many animal names we can unscramble!
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Book series are a great way to get children excited about reading more! I’ve lost count of the number of parents who’ve told me their child has asked for the rest of the series after being introduced to one book at my book club. It’s happened with the A to Z Mysteries, Ottoline and so many more!
Registrations are now closed for the December 2024 -January 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Paati vs UNCLE
We’re rereading Paati vs UNCLE by Meera Ganapathi at my book club! It is a delightful combination of funny and serious, action-driven and character-driven, making it a perfect book club read.
Inju is all set for a quiet, boring holiday with his Paati. That’s just the way he likes it. Unfortunately, from the moment he gets to Parijat Retirement Colony where his grandmother lives, he realises that it’s going to be an exciting, adventurous holiday, not a quiet, boring one. It isn’t what he wanted, but when his Paati is upset and angry, what can he do except take charge?
Making Posters
Inju makes a poster inviting people to join PAATI – People’s Association Against Thieves International. Someone else puts up a poster about a missing parrot, Gangaram.
Posters are always fun to make! What if you want to get people to adopt kittens in your society? And if we move to the realm of fantasy, what if there’s a monster on the loose and you need someone to fight it? Making posters is always fun!
News Reports
While the children at my programme are a little too young to write formal news reports, we will explore the writing of news briefly. I will give them a template and a headline, asking them to create a news report of their own.
Acrostic Poetry
Acronyms can be silly, clever or fun. Sometimes, acronyms become so common that we forget that they are acronyms! I remember when I discovered that SCUBA is an acronym for instance; I was amazed.
With PAATI and UNCLE as examples, we’ll work with clever and crazy acronyms before moving on to writing acrostic poetry.
There’s so much more we can do with this book – discuss interesting food, talk about what is precious to us and to no one else (like Paati’s airtight dabbas!), and work out how to solve a crime. Looking forward to reading together!
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Read, Write, Explore is an ongoing programme that combines the joy of a book club with an introduction to creative writing. There are twelve classes in each edition of the programme, and three of these classes are devoted to writing. Additionally, we play vocabulary games, draw a little, discuss characters and stories, and much more.
Registrations are now closed for the December 2024 -January 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
The Magic Finger
I typically shy away from very well-known books at my book club because I feel that children will come across these books through schools and bookshops anyway. But I’ve always loved Roald Dahl’s work, and what is a book club for if not to spark the joy of reading? We’ve read Fantastic Mr Fox and Esio Trot. Next month, we’ll read The Magic Finger!
Anger
While all of us might wish we had a magic finger to zap someone who makes us angry, that isn’t practical, is it? What do you do when you’re angry? What makes you angry?
Superpowers
Discussing superpowers is a great way to get creative. What superpowers would you like to have? What would you do with those superpowers?
Taking this further, what superpowers would you need to solve specific problems that we see around us?
Book Review
With my book club for ages seven and eight, I often find that the children don’t always understand the details enough to form an opinion about the books we read. It’s for this reason that we often have book discussions, talking about what we like and don’t like about the book. This time, we’ll take this further with brief, simple book reviews that explore our understanding of character and story.
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There’s no better way to fall in love with reading than to start young!
Registrations are now closed for the December 2024 -January 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Leonora Bolt: Secret Inventor
I borrowed Leonora Bolt: The Great Gadget Games from a library recently, and my first thought was that the series would be perfect for my book club!
A science-loving protagonist with imaginative, innovative ideas, a secret inventor, an unusual set of friends … it’s full of possibilities! And that’s why we’re going to be reading the first book from the series, Leonora Bolt: Secret Inventor at my book club next month.
Friendship
Leonora Bolt’s friends include an otter, a cook, a sea captain and a boy who washes up on the island. This will be our prompt to write about an unusual friendship we’d love to have. If you could befriend anyone, whom would you befriend and why? How do you think you could help each other?
Inventions
If you are on an island in the middle of nowhere, but you were the smartest person in the world, what would you invent? How would your invention work?
I love working with wacky inventions of all kinds. I have a poem that plays with innovation and invention too, Making a Clone, though the characters in the story aren’t nearly as successful as Leonora Bolt!
Picture Prompts
Picture prompts are a great way to get started on a story of your own, and The Thinking Collection has a couple of inspiring images of machines. We’ll use these, in addition to a few verbal prompts, to write a story of our own.
Join a book club!
Read, Write, Explore is an ongoing programme that combines the joy of a book club with an introduction to creative writing. There are twelve classes in each edition of the programme, and three of these classes are devoted to writing. Additionally, we play vocabulary games, draw a little, discuss characters and stories, and much more.
Registrations are now closed for the December 2024 -January 2025 edition of Read, Write, Explore. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.
Bookasura
Some books demand to be read at reading programmes. Lucky Girl, with its exploration of poetry. Chitti’s Travelling Book Box with its message of spreading the love for reading. Book Uncle and Me, with the need to save a lending library.
And Bookasura, with its book-eating asura. And that’s why we’re rereading this one at my book club!
Bala loves books. He devours them. Not literally, of course. The problem, however, is his baby sister Meera, who actually likes to eat books. When Bala meets Bookasura, a book-eating demon, he sees a strong resemblance between Meera and the asura. What can he do to defeat Bookasura? What weapon does he have to destroy this book-loving monster?
Bookasura is a fun, funny book about a boy fighting a villain who is bigger and stronger. He uses the skills he has – his stories and his wit. Imaginative and thrilling, I know this is the perfect book to read next with my book club!
Name the Asura!
Raghu Thatha tells Bala the story of Bakasura. Is that what makes Bookasura enter Bala’s life? Maybe. Maybe not.
But naming an asura can be fun! What other asuras can you come up with? What terrible things do they do?
Out in Nature
Being outdoors is precious. Bala spends time on a farm, throwing stones at mangoes, looking at jackfruits and lemons, and making a compost heap.
I would like the children to step out of the house, pick up something from nature and talk about it. How does it look? How does it smell? Does it make a sound?
This could be a leaf, a twig, a pebble – anything!
Books
We’ll play a little book game together, just like Bala from Bookasura. Book scavenger hunts are always fun!
Join a book club!
Registrations are now closed for the December 2024 -January 2025 edition of my book club. New batches begin every alternate month. Join my mailing list if you would like to receive email notifications about my programmes. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook and Instagram – for regular updates.