yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Book Title: Poor Economics for Kids Authors: Esther Duflo and Cheyenne Olivier Published in: 2024 Publisher: Juggernaut Books ISBN: 9789353455866 Price: 999/- Pages: 381 Thanks to Teacher Plus for publishing the review and to Harmony for getting the book. What is this book about?  “ This book tells the stories of Nilou and her friends, a group of children and teens, and the adults who live with them. These children live in a village, one which could be in India or Kenya or Vietnam or elsewhere, and we see them deal with some ordinary and not-so-ordinary challenges. ” Stories from “ a world both very different and yet intensely familiar ”.  These stories are connected by a set of common characters, and of course, the setting. Education, health, urban migration, elections, fear, beliefs, food, greenery, livelihood, government, and gender are the topics they touch upon. The issues they highlight are universal. This is also a book written during or just after the COVID pandem...

Title: Up the Mountains of India  (A fun, fact-filled trek across the country’s major ranges) Author: Mala Kumar Pages: 230 First published: 2023 Publisher: Hachette India ISBN: 978-93-91028-98-5 Price: 499/- Thanks to Teacher Plus, the review up on their site  here . What does this book talk about? This book talks about the mountain ranges across the length and breadth of India – from Karakoram to the Eastern Ghats and from the Aravalli to the Naga Hills. It takes the readers along these ranges and provides information on the types of mountains, their history, and the species that inhabit the mountains. It also clarifies terms and concepts pertaining to mountains. Black and white maps, illustrations, and images in different sizes are present in generous numbers across the book. Towards the end, it also contains “mountain notes” on the mountain railways in India, mountain music, how we can conserve our mountains, etc. What I enjoyed while reading this book? The book clarifies ...

Ped Ka Pata Sushil Shukla  Images: Taposhi Ghoshal  Price: 100/- Pages: 26 First Published: 2025 Published By: Jugnu /  Ektara ISBN: 9788197063831 Thanks to Sushil bhai / Ektara for creating this book , and, of course, for sending it across. This is a book which made me stop, think and reread. A book that took me back to the days of engaging actively on Environment Education.  It is with this lens of Environment Sensitivity, Sensibility that I jot these lines - random thoughts - on the book. I refrain from getting into semantics and use Environment Education for environment awareness or nature sensitisation or wildlife education or sustainability education or simply conversations and thoughts on the Environment. A lot in Environment Education has been by way of telling others what not to do. This book turns the approach upside down. The pieces (for lack of a better word) in this book are tales of people (nameless, and placeless) talking about themselves. These no...

The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama. The Open Road  by  Pico Iyer . The NYT review  here  and a conversation between the author and Dalai Lama  here . Thank you CIHTS for bringing this and other gems to my life.    Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard  - I had thought - would be hard to top : a travel writer at the peak of his craft climbing the heights of the Himalayas, exploring Buddhism with an openness that Buddhism warrants, and taking us deep inside ourselves. Pico Iyer is as good, if not better, as he takes us on a journey with the Dalai Lama . Both these books took me back to the days I put in at Bir with Jono Lineen's Into the Heart of the Himalayas.  Himalayan heights, Buddhism and inner journeys have been intricately woven in each of these classics.  Pico Iyer reminded me that good travel writers travel deep within; they make us pause and delve deep as well. In this they are akin to icebergs - the journeys on the ...

  A book that nudges you to ask questions Title: My story, my voice: Sita and Helen Publisher: Tulika Text: Shailee Illustrations: Priyadarshini Banerjee Price: 345/- Warmly thanking Teacher Plus  for publishing this and Tulika for the book.     What is the book about?   This question is best answered using two lines from the book: “ Two of mythology’s best-known women ” “ What do we know of these women themselves ”?   How did I find the book? Few, if any, of you who read this will claim to be unfamiliar with either Sita or Helen . Films, television serials, comic books, religious texts, textbooks, stories by elders at home, songs or other sources would have led you to them. How many of you drew parallels between the two? This surely never occurred to me. And after reading and rereading the book, I wondered why it did not! This is where the book scores. Its ability to surprise, to nudge one to think. This book takes you thr...

Began a newsletter for the school few months ago A once in two months affair Three issues up so far  One of the sketches made by the children, Newsletters talk about these and other actions at the school, Actions of the children, by the children, for the children, September 2024 November 2024 January 2025

Some gems from his poems, Acknowledge the poetry lovers who have created these, put them up on the web,   Me and my fetish for holding hands, resonates here, holding hands is so, so underrated,  The "when" matters, like the "how", Munir Niyazi has also expressed this eloquently,  here ,  Let us never be busy for each other, let the "come" not leave space for " go ",  New days, love, life, hope,  If home comes, can trees be far behind,  We need to be around trees, their majesticity, there is so much there,  There is a lot to learn from the day-to-day, the seemingly small,  And, to keep doing what we believe,  Previous posts on him, here and here , 

Some years of publishing The complete list (updated February 2025)  here Some author pages on the publication sites The Hindu Deccan Herald Teacher Plus First Post The Citizen Vikalp Sangam Raiot JBNHS Roundglass Sustain Scroll The Wire Earth Dialogue The Quint India Hikes Conservation India

How to teach poetry How do we introduce poetry to students and tell them what it is? Thanks to the team at The Hindu , and of course to Chandni madam.  A few weeks ago, we had organized a session on poetry for teachers. The idea was to delve deeper into poetry and discuss how best we could get children to bond better with it. The session commenced with a song and I began by asking colleagues to recall one or more film songs which, in their understanding, were laden with metaphors. The silence that followed made me wonder where I had erred. I then wrote on the board a few lines from a song to discuss the metaphors it contained. However, the participants found it difficult to connect the metaphors with the song. Most people like and listen to film songs but rarely associate them with metaphors or with any other figures of speech. Someone said that an exercise like this could suck the joy of out of songs. This left me wondering if we connect with metaphors only when we wear our t...

More days at the Morisaki Bookshop Author: Satoshi Yagisawa Translator: Eric Ozawa ISBN: 978-1-786-58432-8 First published: 2024 Pages: 163 More about Days at the Morisaki Bookshop here A sequel after long A sequel that lives up to its expectations A sequel that continues to bring out special in the ordinary, in the day-to-day life A sequel that flows easy A sequel that teaches without being preachy A sequel that I did good to get without thinking too much Few glimpses Sharing your thoughts with someone seems so simple, but at times it can be surprisingly difficult. Even more so when it’s someone you care for so much for. But if you find the courage to do it, it’ll bring you closer together. When you’re sad, don’t try to hold it in. It’s ok to cry a lot. The tears are there because you’ve got to go on living. You’re going on living, which means there’ll be more things to cry about.  People forget all kinds of things. They live by forgetting. Yet our thoughts endure, the way waves ...