Gita Wolf, illustrated by Durga Bai
Churki-Burki Book of Rhyme
Tara Books, 2010.

Ages: 4-8

The award-winning (Bologna Ragazzi Prize) Gond artist, Durga Bai, not only illustrated Churki Burki but also provided the inspiration for the text. From Bai’s reminiscences of her childhood village life in India, writer (and Tara Books publisher) Gita Wolf has created a charming and respectful day-in-the-life-of story of two sisters, Churki and Burki, that includes rhymes and song-like stanzas.

Churki Burki has been produced with the loving attention readers have come to expect from Tara Books. Handmade in Chennai, the hard-bound book’s heavy cream paper shows off Bai’s Gond folk-style drawings to great effect. Simply handling the volume will be an aesthetic pleasure for children and adults alike.

Life in Churki and Burki’s tribal village is basic but full. The girls live in the small family hut, breakfast on millet and greens, sleep on a straw mat. Their parents go out every day to gather firewood and food, and the daughters help. They have a pumpkin patch and share a corn field with other villagers. Two little friends come to play—their circle song, hopscotch, and game with stones are illustrated—and stay for supper.

It is not an entirely idyllic life: the corn is threatened by jackals, and later parrots, who have to be scared off.  But urban children around the world will be moved by the peaceful harmony of rural Indian life and adult readers will sense the nostalgia and love that pervade this sweet testimony to a not-quite-bygone era. Although some native English-speaking parents may quibble about imprecise rhymes or slightly irregular language, the overall experience of this book will impress most readers out of such objections.

Durga Bai draws on the Gond artistic tradition and later training as a painter in her work on Churky Burki. From childhood she learned the traditional techniques used by Gond women to decorate their huts. Her human and animal figures as well as the flora of the natural world are elaborately decorated in what westerners may think of as henna-type designs. While the figures have a childlike stillness, exuberant trees and vines dance with energy. When Burki, the first to awake, tells her sister, “Get up, it’s the next day!” young readers will be delighted to join the girls in their vibrant village life.

Charlotte Richardson
October 2010