Let's "book it" to School

School is fun! Well, it can be. Kindergarten, especially. (They still have snacks in kindergarten!) Yet when I was seeking enticing titles about kindergarten, my local librarian offered two titles. Two! The mammoth Amazon came up with fewer titles than I expected, and frankly, fewer still that appealed.

So what's up with the dearth of good, exciting, books about going to school?! If we read about one more kid who is afraid to go to school, my son might get the idea he should be worried about going to school.

Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten was OK (in case you like it, there's a series) and The Kissing Hand is also nice, if you like that sort of thing. It's kinda' mushy for my taste, however. And it conveys, like, zero excitement about starting school.

Any suggestions? Anyone? (Psst: You don't even have to raise your hand!)

Slice of Indian Life Lacks Compelling Story

I think Karan Mahajan's family planning (c) 2008 is a very realistic farce, but it was hard for me to be sure just what the author was trying to convey at times...fortunately, his prose was pleasing enough to keep me reading through some of the rough spots in this, his first book.

The HarperCollins website offers a lovely synopsis of the book, so I won't try to duplicate it. In a nutshell, family planning is set in modern Delhi, featuring the large and ever-expanding Ahuja family. Father Rakesh, utterly disappointed in his (deceitfully) arranged marriage, finds he is, thankfully, attracted to his wife - but only when she is pregnant. Ergo, the couple has produced thirteen children and Mrs. Ahuja is pregnant again as the book begins.

Fifteen-year-old Arjun is the only one of the children we get to know, following the teen drama of his crush on the girl who rides his bus, his attempt to form a band explicitly to impress said girl, and Arjun's utter despair when he realizes that he can never have the band over to his house to practice, as he's unable to admit to his friends that he has twelve siblings, not six, as he's always maintained.

Ah, adolescence.

Ironically (and comically) Rakesh's antics at work are as juvenile as his son's high school foibles. But again, it's hard to say whether that comparison was intended by the author, or not.

One of my frustrations with this book is that Mahajan seems to have a lot of talent, but instead of showcasing his best talents in this book, he chose to give us a collage.

Mahajan drops readers into modern India on every page, with descriptions of unfinished flyovers, political corruption, plates of chappati. He drops humor into the mix too, with running gags about Mr. Ahuja's hearing problem and Mrs. Ahuja's pronoun usage. (Mrs. Ahuja rarely uses her children's names; instead, she's constantly saying, "tell him to come here" - which is both confusing and useful in a house with 13 kids.) But at odd spots - sometimes in the middle of one of those gags - the author stops to jab the reader with savvy but melancholy observations on love and marriage and the lives lost in between. At such a spot, however, when the jerky pace annoys, Mahajan's well-crafted narrative soothes.

He knew nothing about this woman, this wife of fifteen-odd years. Vague details, yes--the tough jackfruits of her elbows, the sullen hump of her jaw, the bulbous nose she had proudly passed on to each child except Arjun...a fierce protection of her Right to Eat at the table--but nothing more. He twisted and turned in his head the Rubik's cube of domestic details and arrived at no sustainable patterns. His mind was a drawer rummaged of all its contents.
- p 228

family planning had its merits, but unlike some reviewers, I'm not completely smitten with Mahajan's storytelling. His insight is delightful, and he has a tendency to surprise with it, rather than with plot twists or tension between characters. The lack of external conflict was disappointing to me.

family planning is so ripe with potential clashes among its many unique characters that every chapter seemed ready to burst. It never did. You might enjoy it anyway. I did.

More here:

Buying a Book for Mom?

Consider these, for and about all sorts of moms.

(You are doing something for mom this Mother's Day, aren't you?!)