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Excuse Me, Is This India? by Anushka Ravishankar
A riot of colors, simple patchwork technique illustrations, fantastic narration, and a wonderful book to introduce kids to India.
That's pretty much how I can describe 'Excuse me, is this India?' written by Anushka Ravishankar and illustrated by Anita Leutwiler.
This is a story about Anna whose aunt has come back from India and then gifted her a quilt with pictures of all the things she has seen. Anna cuddles into the quilt and then her story begins. From an airplane to cows and crows. A little girl to bandicoots (R, my 5-year old brat, loved the way this is pronounced, she kept saying 'bandicoots, bandicoots!')
From autorickshaws (described as a three-wheel car, how awesome!) to elephants in front of the temple, from shops to airports again, the story moves with a fluidity that makes you want to keep turning pages.
Apart from the bandicoots, the description of the rickshaw and the wonderful ending was something R loved.
1) The wonderful description of India
2) The nuances captured. Of cows eating from a bin, to the auto guy just going ahead without asking why, to the elephant at the temple asking everyone to remove their shoes, to the riot of colors in the shop - the author seems to have caught the very spirit of India in a wonderful manner :)
3) The illustrations. Simple, easy on the eye, and yet a riot of colors.
4) The fact that the book brings to you some information about the old quilting forms which were earlier used by people to capture memories
This book will definitely appeal to parents who are bringing up their children away from India. Not for anything else, but the simple things about India which are otherwise missed out when you come for visits to the homeland. Well, actually even for people living in India, I would recommend the book, for it's a fun read and has wonderful illustrations.
Much liked in the R household!
This month we explore Spatial Reasoning skills by making a quilt with Indian motifs! Spatial reasoning skills play a major role in later math achievement for preschoolers. Besides talking about numbers and their relationships to each other, we also need to talk about spatial relationships and shapes to help preschoolers prepare for later math learning!
Spatial ability is the ability to mentally picture and manipulate objects - rotating them, looking at them from different angles, observing how objects may fit together (like putting the triangles together to make the square!) and more. Incorporating Spatial Talk also helps - talk about the geometric shapes in this quilt-making activity, how big or small the pieces are and their relative position with each other.
