On October 26th Hindus all over the world will be celebrating one of their most important festivals of the year: Diwali. Also known as the Festival of Lights, Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. To Hindus, darkness represents ignorance, and light is a metaphor for knowledge. Lighting a lamp symbolizes the destruction, through knowledge, of all negative forces. Diwali is celebrated by Hindus of all ages and during the festival celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends.

If you are looking for children’s books about Diwali check out Chad Stephenson’s Personal View piece Diwali: The Hindu Festival of Lights, and the following PaperTigers’ blog posts:

Poetry Friday: About Diwali and its Poetic Origins in the Ramayana

Happy Diwali!

Diwali, Festival of Lights

This year the Hindu festival of Diwali is from Nov. 5-9.   Today marks its beginning.  I first heard about the festival from watching a National Film Board film called Lights for Gita in their Talespinners Collection (a series of short films for 5-9 year olds.)  In this story, eight year old Gita, who lives in Montreal is excited about celebrating Diwali in her new country, but something unexpected happens — an ice storm knocks out power in the city.  What will Gita do?  Will this holiday celebrated with lights now be ruined for  her?  Check out the DVD by ordering it, or finding it at your local library!  You can also check out the book on which the film is based written by Rachna Gilmore.  Rachna wrote three Gita titles and you can read an interview with her here.

PaperTigers with its focus on India this issue has a number of book suggestions about Diwali in a revisited Personal Views article by Chad Stephenson.  Pooja Makhijani also refers to Diwali in her Personal Views article entitled “A String of Bright Lights.”  She mentions her Diwali book picks in a post she did for the children’s lit blog Chicken Spaghetti awhile back.  In her post, she mentions how in northern India, Diwali is a celebration of the homecoming of Ram whose story can be found in her suggested picture book title Rama and the Demon King: An Ancient Tale from India by Jessica Souhami.  I found Souhami’s book at my local library; it was a bilingual one in Somali and English!   The story of Rama is found in the Hindu text The Ramayana which is a 24, 000 couplet poem written in Sanskrit by Valmiki around 300 B.C.   My daughter’s view of this ancient story of Rama was rather quaint; she said she liked stories where the good guy (Rama) and a bad guy (Ravanna) fight it out over a woman (Sita)  — although in this case, the bad guy is terrifying ten-headed demon!

Hope you have a happy Diwali this year!  Poetry Friday is hosted by JoAnn at Teaching Authors.

As librarian at San Francisco Friends School, Chad Stephenson naturally thinks a lot about spiritual books for children. In addition to Becoming Buddha, which he earlier recommended to us, and his suggestions of books about Diwali for our November website update, Chad also offers the following annotations on favorite books to inspire and nurture spiritual development in young readers:

• Wolf Brother (fantasy/adventure) by Michelle Paver – The tale of a boy discovering his connection to the natural world through a spiritually demonic bear who he must confront
• Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back by Shel Silverstein – A great laugh-out-loud story about power and consumerism with a non-moral ending. (1963)
• The Golden Compass [known in the U.K. as Northern Lights] by Philip Pullman – Meant for the older, advanced readers from 9 and up, this first book in the trilogy brings a fantasy twist to the Christian story of Adam and Eve, though cloaked in an exceptionally creative fantasy world. (Now out as a film as well)
• Stories from the Bible by Lisbeth Zwerger – Meant for older kids (ages 9-11), who are familiar with the Bible and enjoy longer, more elaborate versions. Zwerger’s exquisite illustrations accompany the King James version text.

We look forward to more of Chad’s suggestions and contributions to PaperTigers. His outlook and perspective are much appreciated!

Chad Stephenson, San Francisco Friends School librarian, has been working on an extensive school project about Diwali, the Hindu winter Festival of Light, celebrated on November 9 this year. In a ‘Personal View’ piece he’s contributed to the PaperTigers website, Chad gives us the scoop on the celebration of Rama’s victorious return from Lanka with his kidnapped wife, Sita. His article is chock full of great Diwali-related reading recommendations, including Hanuman, by Erik Jendresen and Joshua M. Greene, illustrated by Li Ming, and, for background and context, Uma Krishnaswami’s award-winning Monsoon, illustrated by Jamel Akib. Here’s a PaperTigers review of another book on Chad’s list.

Canadian Rachna Gilmore‘s Lights for Gita isn’t on his list, but it will shed yet more light on the Diwali’s real meaning: Gita’s difficulties settling into her life in Canada are exemplified by not being able to celebrate the holiday the same way she would have back home.

Becoming Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha, by Whitney Stewart, is one of the top five spiritual books for kids on San Francisco Friends School librarian Chad Stephenson’s current favorites list. A practicing Quaker, Chad has also worked in Catholic and Waldorf schools. He looks for books that “equip kids spiritually for the incongruities of life” and are “not obnoxiously preachy.”

Chad describes Becoming Buddha as “a simple retelling of the Buddha’s life through a uniquely formatted book which also includes Sanskrit and even some ‘dark’ sides of the Buddha’s experiences; best for ages 8 and up.”

Along with further details on the appealing format of Becoming Buddha, Whitney Stewart’s website includes a page of information on Buddhism; scroll down for an annotated list of other books on Buddhism for children. Australian Sally Rippin, an illustrator with a widely international background, created the beautiful images. Becoming Buddha includes an introduction to meditation practice for children. Stewart’s earlier books include biographies of the Dalai Lama and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

We’ll have more of Chad’s thoughts and recommendations on spiritual books for children in future posts.