Ruskin Bond at 92: An Open Letter From Young Readers

There are some writers we read, admire, and eventually move on from. And then there are writers like Ruskin Bond, who quietly become a part of our growing years  like an old hillside home, a warm cup of tea on a rainy day, or the gentle voice of a grandparent telling stories under the evening sky.

As Ruskin Bond turns 92 today, generations of readers are not merely celebrating an author; they are celebrating a feeling. Through simple words and ordinary moments, he taught children to notice life closely — the sound of rain on windows, the friendship hidden in loneliness, the comfort of nature, and the goodness that still exists in people.

In a world racing toward noise and distraction, his stories remained beautifully slow and sincere. He never needed grand adventures to move hearts. A small room in Dehradun, a cherry tree, a mischievous ghost, or a train journey was enough to make readers pause, smile, and feel at home.

Perhaps that is why children continue to write letters to him even today. Because somewhere between his pages, they discovered kindness without preaching, imagination without excess, and innocence without artificiality. He did not just write stories for children; he made childhood itself feel meaningful.

Book Review: The Adventures of Ed-a-Mamma: Ed Finds A Home by Alia Bhatt

When Alia Bhatt, a renowned Indian actress, stepped into the world of children's literature with her debut book, The Adventures of Ed-a-Mamma: Ed Finds A Home, it was a moment that sparked curiosity and interest. We've delved into the pages of this unique creation, and here's our review of Ed Finds A Home by Alia Bhatt, the first book she's published with Penguin Publishers. 

Book Review: The Adventures of Ed-a-Mamma: Ed Finds A Home by Alia Bhatt

Book Cover: 

The book cover of Ed Mamma's Finding a New Home is a subtle illustration with colors of a young girl sitting with her pet. This beautiful cover sets the tone of the book.

Author of Ed Finds A Home: 

Alia Bhatt had a vision for the book and the series Adventures of Ed-a-Mamma. The book is co-authored by Vivek Kamath & Shabnam Minwalla. So, all the backslashes received on social media about Alia Bhatt turning author in just a few days have answers. 

Cute yet Futuristic Story Plot: 

The name of the girl in the Alia Bhatt's book is, of course, Alia! 

Alia, the lead character in the book, often needs clarification as she hears many sounds and does not know their source. She tries to figure it out but has no luck. One day, Alia meets a puppy and falls in love with it, and then she realizes that she has superpower and can listen to animals and other living beings. She wishes to keep the puppy as her pet, but her parents disagree. Will she convince her parents to keep a puppy, or does she have to bid goodbye for you to read?

Iluustrator: Tanvi Bhat

In every children book, the illustrator's role is pivotal, and in the case of Ed Finds a New Home, it's no different. Tanvi Bhat's illustrations are a visual treat, perfectly complementing the Story and characters.

Illustrator Tanvi Bhat has done a remarkable job setting the book's tone as soothing and clear characters with the correct expressions. The puppy Ed is so adorable with a bow. Colors in the book are aesthetic and have a soothing effect on the reading experience.

What's the best in the book:

• Alia is a kind girl who wishes to help everyone. Empathy is an important lesson to teach children early, and author Alia Bhatt has done a fair job in this regard.
• Saving the environment is the need of the hour, and the book holds the key element.
• Having the crow as the narrator of the story is really interesting.
• The swift thinking of Alia makes the story move at a good pace.
• Alia's parents are not showcased as traditional but in a contemporary household setting. Such changes in storytelling are essential as children perceive things as they see. 
• The book instills in young children a sense of responsibility towards the environment.
• Adventures of Ed Mamma: Ed Finds a New Home is the first book in the country to be printed on FSC certified paper.

Where you can grab the book:

Book: Adventures of Ed Mamma: Ed Finds a New Home

Author: Alia Bhatt

Publisher: Puffin Books

Genre: Children Book (Age: 5 years and up)

Online: Amazon & all leading online platforms

Pages: 35

My Rating: 5/5

Final Word: 

If you wish to select a storybook that imbibes compassion for pets, empathy for the environment, and respect for elders, this is the book you can choose. It is perfect for children aged 3 to 8. In her debut book, author Alia Bhatt has done a star job. As Alia Bhatt's movie has smashed all the records, the first book in the series is all set to make a high mark with everything right.

Book Review: Mom Says You Need to be Strong by Aditi Gupta

 A mother is the backbone of a child who teaches kids the valuable lessons of life. The role of a mother in raising the child is very crucial as the learnings she imparts to the child are ingrained deep in the child's mind.

Today, we bring you from our bookshelf "Mom Says You Need to Be Strong," which speaks about the lessons from a mother to her children irrespective of age. A teenager finds solace in a mom; a toddler needs the cuddle from the mom to feel safe, and youngsters search for answers for their indecisive minds in their mom. So, mom is there for all, irrespective of what age you grow. 

Book Review - Unbroken by Indrani Mukerjea

If you believe in karma, then there is no place for fear, is what Indrani puts across in her book "Unbroken."

Book Review - Unbroken by Indrani Mukerjea

She was torn, betrayed, and accused but stood their firm, "Unbroken." The book Unbroken, The Untold Story by Indrani Mukerjea is about her journey, narrated in her own words.

Unbroken speaks about the life of Indrani Mukerjea, who was accused of murdering her daughter, Sheena Bora. This high-profile case has been buzzing the news channels for quite some time now. The book reflects some bitter truths about Indrani's high-profile life and how she stood unbroken throughout her troubled journey.

The cover: 

The cover portrays the intense face of Indrani, which puts across the message of the title "Unbroken."

75 Quotes by the PM & the President of India : Amrit Mahotsav

Celebrating 75 years of Independence of India, we are celebrating Amrit Mahotsav this year 2022. Our leaders have always led the nation on a prosperous path and guided us with their words. We have encapsulated powerful quotes from the Prime Ministers of India and famous quotes from the President of India. We present 75 quotes by the PM of India & President of India in total. 

Collating all the quotes is our way to celebrate Amrit Mahotsav with 75 quotes from the PM & President of India and sharing a glimpse of history with our readers on our blog. 

50 Prime Minister of India Quotes

Jawahar Lal Nehru  15-Aug-1947 to 27-May-1964.

The first Prime Minister of Independent India was known as 'Chacha Nehru' for his love for children.

1. "Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes."

2. "Citizenship consists in the service of the country."

3. "Facts are facts and won't disappear on account of your likes."

4. "The children of today will make the India of tomorrow."

Gulzarilal Nanda 27-May-1964 to 9 June 1964  11-Jan-1966 to 24 January 1966 

The second Prime Minister of India gave his services from

5. "Industrialization relations are of the highest importance from every point of view including that of production." 

6. Water gushing out of thousands of springs at different places cannot move the wheels of a big engine to carry out very heavy tasks. But the channeled flow of the same water in the bed of a stream will, however, be irresistible and can become a source of tremendous energy.

Children Fantasy Book Review : Bibi Blundermuss and the Tree Across the Cosmos

Have you ever encountered your fear face to face and the need to face it because the lives of your loved ones are at stake? Well, in the book "Bibi Blundermuss and the Tree Across the Cosmos",  written by Andrew Durkin has to face it.

The children's book with a strong message of the win over your fears and identifying your strengths has done complete justice to the storyline.

Book Cover:

The cover of this children fantasy book has Bibi looking confused among the woods, the color combination of the cover is apt to take you to the fantasy world where trees have their own world and challenges. Stick in Bibi hand, gives us a hint of her being fighter in the story. 

What Does EcoBloggers Community Say On Environment

We have been enthusiastically writing about the environment awareness posts in our #EnvironmentalTalks cause for the #CauseAChatter. We have carefully chosen the topics that bring the cognizance among readers and are grateful to all the Environmentalists and Founders of Eco-friendly enterprise guests who featured at our #EnvironmentalTalks sessions who discussed what a common person can do towards the benefit of the environment. 

How to complete Reading Challenge easily

When a challenge is accepted, a person tries to finish it with 100% dedication but most time we need 30% smartness with 70% dedication. Yes, you need to be smart to complete the challenge and look for all the guidelines of the challenge carefully so that you enjoy the challenge than feeling pressurized with it.

When we started with The Blogchatter Reading Challenge aka #TBR Challenge, we set a target of 52 books for a year for both of us. To date, we have completed 38 books in 3 quarters smoothly, and soon we shall complete the challenge too. We stick to the plan of how to choose the book if you are still thinking about what to read next, here are few pointers to select your next book.

Movie Review : Cinderella musical 2021 by Kay Kennon: Breaking stereotypes

Cinderella is a fairy tale that has been known to the world for many decades and it has been retold many times with a storyline ‘Cinderella who lives with her stepmother and step sisters wishes to visit the palace but her stepmother denies it, still she visits the royal ball with help of fairy Godmother, meets the prince, her glass shoe is left at the palace and the prince finds Cinderella with the help of shoe, marries the prince and happily ever after ending'. 

This storyline has been retold various times with the message of kindness, courage, and hope. The main virtue of watching the famous fairy tale is not to expect anything new as the storyline is known for many years and viewers have pre-notion of the final message too but this Cinderella musical will surprise you. 

6 Interesting Indoor Activities for Children

The parenting journey is full of experiences and challenges plus the pandemic made it even more challenging as the boundaries got restricted to the home itself. A child who used to spend an average time of 2 hours in outdoor activities got shrunk to indoor activities. Parents started looking for many activities that can keep a child busy, active and also make them stress-free at the same time. 

Even we as a family tried new activities that helped us to stay indoors with kids merrily that not only paved the way to creativity but also gave a boost to their confidence. Sharing with you all 6 such activities that make our house full of happiness and creative juices flow freely while we perform them with family members.

1. Playing Favorite Music:

Music can be a great mood uplifter on a mundane day, it boosts the energy of the house and makes the routine work sound interesting. Funnily dancing with the kids also builds the bond and eases the stress built on kids due to studies and a constrained environment. Just set your favorite numbers and dance out the stress that was building up.

Book Review Pinkoo Shergill Pastry Chef : Dream to become Chef

We are in a world where the change is constant and the change has to begin with the mindset. The book Pinkoo Shergill Pastry Chef by Vibha Batra published by Scholastic brings in the spark of change with the storyline. The detailed review shall give you insights into the book and whether you wish to pick this one for your or your child.

Book Cover & Book Title:

The book cover is very appealing with a multi-storied colorful cake and chef Pinkoo Shergill with chef cap and whisker. There is a shooting board in the backdrop too that gives us the hint of the entire blurb of the book. The title Pinkoo Shergill Pastry Chef essays the passion of Pinkoo towards baking. 

How Coding improves Brain Development: Leapwaters Coding Camp

The world is full of opportunities, it is just we need to tap into the right one at the right moment. In the past one and half years, children are bound indoors and another few months too due to COVID 19 pandemic. They will be at home for a longer time than any time before. While children learn many life skills going to school, kids are now coping up with their studies online and also they try to keep themselves busy so that there is no dull moment in a day.  

Parents seek different kinds of activities to keep the child busy. Mostly the development in children takes place at early ages and tapping this valuable time into some useful activities is most important. It is also important to understand the child's interest because one will explore things themselves if they participate wholeheartedly. Accordingly, parents can plan out what is most beneficial for the child to keep them happy and productive. With passing months child's brain starts accepting the physical boundaries but we can surely keep kids energetic in effective ways.  

Cinco of Shrav vs Sana by Suhasini: Children book with life lessons

Blogchatter EbookCarnival has released so many books in May 2021 and the great news to all the readers is that all of them are free for download. We have also downloaded several books and will be coming up with Book Reviews for most of them.

Today we are sharing a book review of the book Cinco of Shrav vs Sana by Suhasini, Shravmusings, the mother-son duo. We read the book titled ‘My friends from Mythological world’ of this duo earlier too which had many mythological character stories with life lessons and liked the child perspective in it. Let us see what this new book by this duo has to offer to us.

Book Cover & Book Title:

The cover has the main characters Shrav and Sana with their personality description that gives the reader glimpse about the characters. The title states ‘Cinco’ which means 5 in Spanish, so we have 5 stories of Shrav and Sana.

Death on The Nile by Agatha Christie: Murder Mystery Book

Reading a murder mystery can keep you awake for nights to know the next move in the book so is the book Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie published by HarperCollins. Let us explore all aspects of this book in this book review. 

About the author: Agatha Christie

I have not read many of the renowned author Agatha Christie book, and this year I have pledged myself to read the bestsellers, so this is the first in the year. Many already know about the famous author yet let me share few highlights about her.

Agatha Christie has penned more than 100 titles that includes Mystery books, Poitrot book series, Tommy & Tuppence, Memoirs, Plays & Stories. She was one of the best-selling authors whose words and plot were magical besides the detectives build the whole scenario so colorful. Born in 1890, her books speak volume of the changes the world was going through and till her health fall ill in 1973, she continued to write. 

After reading this book, I am surely going to pick few more books by this author and add in my collection as these books are treasure.

Book Review of YA book The Itsy Bitsy Spyder by Apeksha Rao

We all want to be in a profession which gives us excitement in life and what will happen when the job itself is thrilling. Let us have a look at the detailed book review of 'The Itsy Bitsy Spyder' by Apeksha Rao.

Book Title & Cover:  

The title of the book 'The Itsy Bitsy Spyder'  is on the lines of a famous nursery rhyme with a twist in word Spyder, which tells us that it is going to be a story about a spy.

The cover is very eye-catching with colorful caricatures of the lead character in the centre while all the other characters who influence the lead surround her.

Deepna Nagar Children Book Review: The Bug The Bear & Baby Boo

Children are fascinated with a story full of colors, surprises and of course love it when the animals are part of it. Today we are reviewing a book for children by Deepna Nagar, this book is introduced to us by the Writersmelon team.

 

The children's book is most difficult to pen, sighting the audience and their understanding level the author has to weave a story that is connected to children, have a message and a good percentage of work, let's see if all this is considered in this book.

 

Book Title & Book Cover:

The book title ‘The Bug The Bear and Baby Boo’ by Deepna Nagar catches your attention from the title itself. All the characters starting from letter ‘B’ makes the title interesting plus creates a jingle kind of line with the long title in a smart way.

 

The book cover as you see in the above picture is completely depicting the characters in a linear yet attractive manner. The letter B is prominent in the title and the design is well played to make the long title look remarkable for children.

6 ways to instill importance of 'MY INDIA' in children

A culmination of varied cultures, rich values, valuable history, brave people, diverse natural resources, colorful feast of attires, magnanimous heritage, multi-fold delicacies and what not. We can relate to our country INDIA very easily when we hear the above lines. 

 

This grandeur of Indian cultures and values should be known to every generation and that can be achieved when we involve the kids to do their bit for the nation. It is our foremost duty to introduce them to the worth of culture and traditions with proper justification.

 

Apart from restricting ourselves to showcase patriotism on only National Days we shall habituate ourselves to shower love and care towards nation ‘My India’ on each day. We all can do a few simple practises in our life to add a significant contribution to the nation besides these can be taught to our next generation.

 

5 reasons why Maths is important in our life

The moment we step into this world maths becomes an integral part of life. For example when a child is born we immediately start celestial calculations for finding the letter from which the child’s name will begin. Mathematics plays a very critical role in day to day life; at some point or the other we all need to use maths and its formulas in every activity we do. So we can say that maths walk with us till we are there in this world. Unknowingly Maths is part of  life which we cannot ignore and we all need to make partnership with it for running a smooth life.

 

Beyond this, Maths also helps to craft human behaviour and methodologies to look at things around us. Let us analyze 5 reasons why maths is important in our lives.

Solution to Education vs Hunger Pangs : #MidDayMeals #EducationForAll #CauseAChatter

We are going to ponder upon a very important aspect of #EducationForAll series of #CauseAChatter. Let us first read this fiction story titled ‘Difficult Decision’ before we move ahead.

_______________________________________________________________

It was fine sunny morning, and the time when Kriti was sipping a cup of tea, while reading newspaper. She had finished her morning chores, and Kamu her helper was washing utensils, when suddenly she heard; “I want to , I want to Maa”. Kriti folded newspaper and took her cup to walk to backyard where she saw Vishnu crying and pleading to his mother.

“I will go to school today Maa, I can’t be at home.” said Vishnu in a shivering voice.

 

“Why not, I will myself drop you there; you won’t miss the school” replied Kamu with a heavy heart.

“That’s good Kamu, your son is so passionate about the studies, and one day he will become a successful man” Kriti said.  She gave Vishnu a packet of stationery and story book and patted him.

Is LOCKDOWN – Physical Challenge or Mental Challenge for you?

The world is trapped under the shadow of virus named Covid 19, CoronaVirus. The only way to escape from this virus is staying away from people and probably staying away from everyone. This leads to Lockdown situation in most of the countries in the world. India is also hit with it and entire country will be under lockdown state, which means one can only step out of the house if it very urgent and for fetching the essentials.

Families are locked in their home for staying away from all and spending time in isolation. This situation gets tricky with each passing day as we all don’t know the end date of it. When we are unable to physically move from one place then all the challenges are diverted to mental challenge and we all can overcome this by using few simple ways.