On October 13th and 14th, Siyahi, India’s leading literary agency, and India Habitat Centre are presenting Voices from the North East, a focused literary meet on the stories, tales and folk narratives of North East India. The event will take place at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.

The verdant Seven Sister States from the North East of India have a unique indigenous culture where myths, oral traditions, legends and folklore are commonplace and yet unique. Voices from the North East will take into account the quantum of diversity in art and culture in this region which is evident from the multitude of languages and ethnic groups. It will deal with the art of storytelling in context to the development of North Eastern culture and civilization. Authors, poets, storytellers and performers will engage audiences in a cultural dialogue and help them to understand the North Eastern literature in all its myriad forms and dimensions.

Siyahi is also hosting the Pushkar Literature Festival on October 31st during the International Pushkar Fair. For one day, writers, poets, book lovers, publishers, performers and storytellers will be brought together to add to the mesmerizing riot of colours, textures, hues and flavours that come alive during the International Pushkar Fair. This literary event will help explore and discover the meeting points between contemporary literature and folklore, oral traditions, legends, myths and languages, which precisely define the spirit of Pushkar.

For up-to-date information about these events including detailed programmes and photos, visit Siyahi’s Facebook page.

Sometimes the simplest remark can be the most transforming. “Perhaps, sir, you will come back with books,” a Nepalese headmaster said to John Wood, a vacationing Microsoft employee, as they stood in a school library that had twenty books that “were all backpacker cast-offs.” Haunted by the thought of children who might never know the joy of reading, Wood returned home and spent a year gathering children’s books. He went back to the headmaster with 3,000 volumes and a new direction for his life. John Wood decided that bringing books to children who have none was his vocation and Room to Read was born, as he tells readers in Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.

Wood put together an organization with staff who share his dream and his passion, aided by a fundraising network of more than 3,000 people. The core programs of Room to Read are the Reading Room which has built 5,600 libraries,  Local Language Publishing which publishes and distributes books written both in English and the local language, the School Room which works with local communities to build schools with 444 in use, the Room to Grow Girls’ Scholarship that enables 4,000 girls to complete their secondary education, and the Computer and Language Room which builds computer and language labs.

Found in India, Sri Lanka, Zambia, South Africa, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Room to Read is vitalized by donations and volunteers, who have discovered how they can help by going to www.roomtoread.org. All share a common goal—to have built 10,000 libraries by 2010.

Scheduled half-day visits to a Room to Read site are welcome with advance arrangement.

One man, one dream, 3,000 books– one optimistic remark changed a life and consequently thousands of lives are being changed through the power of reading and the joy of literacy, all over the world.

PaperTigers: Your life has been a tapestry of living in many cultures—in France, Spain, England, the United States, Nigeria, India. How has this helped you as a writer?

Katia: This is an interesting question. How does life in general help and/or affect us as writers? I would say every experience shapes us, and what we are shows up inevitably in what we write. I could not have written Amadi’s story if I had not lived in Nigeria. On the other hand, it must be said that a life spent traveling or living in vastly different countries (even if I also find similarities from one to another) has made me slightly jaded. I’m so used to witnessing diverse ways of living, eating, dressing, even driving a car on the road (!) that it takes more and more to surprise me. I notice that particularly when we have guests. Some of the things that amaze them, I have come to view as part of my daily routine or panorama.

PaperTigers: It’s been said that writing a picture book is as demanding as writing a poem. Each word must be precise, the use of language must be economical, and the images evocative. Longer forms of fiction can be more forgiving. Why did you choose this difficult form for Amadi’s story? And would you choose it again?

Katia:I love the picture book format. I love the conversation between the art and the words on the page, how they are meant to complement each other. I think that writers who are also artists are very lucky to be able to experience this medium in its full beauty, and difficulty. Amadi came to me that way : it was a turning point in the life of a young boy, related to a particular instance, and something that needed to be resolved quickly. And yes, I have three other picture book manuscripts that I hope will find a home. Children love pictures. They love being able to suspend the flow of a story to examine an image, notice details, talk about the expression on the face of a character, the background, etc.

PaperTigers:As a mother of two girls, why did you decide to write about a boy? Is there a “real-life” Amadi? How did you manage to enter the heart and mind of a small “Igbo man of Nigeria” and give him such complete life on the page?

Katia:There is no “real-life” Amadi, but there are lots of boys just like him. The problem of these boys dropping out of school to earn quick money in the street is very real. As for entering the heart and mind of Amadi, I think it’s the reverse. Amadi entered my own mind and started telling me his story. I just had to write it down. (more…)

Today PaperTigers is thrilled to be part of Katia Novet Saint-Lot’s virtual book tour for her wonderful book, Amadi’s Snowman (Tilbury House). From her home in Hyderabad, India, Katia is spending this month visiting blogs around the world in interviews and photos, discussing her life as a writer and global nomad, and providing photos and drawings from children who have fallen in love with her irrepressible and insatiably curious creation, Amadi.

The drawings that preface our interview with Katia come from students in two fourth grade classes at the Vidyaranya School in Hyderabad, with whom Katia recently spent time reading and discussing her book.

These are children fluent in English, with Hindi and Telugu taught as second languages, who were quite interested when Katia told them that Amadi and his classmates are English speakers as well.

And as their delightful drawings plainly reveal, they became immersed in the Nigerian world of the small Igbo businessman and devoted reader in the making, Amadi!

…that’s the question that Little Brother prodded me awake with two mornings ago. I have to say that my response did not immediately live up to expectations… However, having ascertained from the child-who-swallowed-the-animal-encyclopaedia-whole that lagomorphs are “rabbits, hares and pikas”, I was eventually able to fudge an answer.

Later on, I returned to the question and said that I had chosen the rabbit in the moon, at which Little Brother laughed at me and told me, “That’s just a myth.”, but he was more than happy to curl up and listen again to the story, so beautifully retold by Naomi Adler in The Barefoot Book of Animal Tales from Around the World (Barefoot, 2006). We agreed afterwards that even though a heart of gold is not really made of gold, it is definitely worth striving for and is “much better than a heart of stone”. I felt reassured that he may be able to recognise the fantasy element in myths and legends, but his imagination is still caught up in the magic of a good retelling: and this collection is an excellent one for reading aloud. Naomi Adler is first and foremost a storyteller and her background in the oral tradition shines through. In fact, her narration on the accompanying CDs is a joy listen to. I also like the page at the end of the book where she describes her sources for each tale – all passed on through the oral tradition by someone first-hand from the country in question!

Amanda Hall’s illustrations also contribute to bringing the stories alive. She emphasises their cultural diversity, by incorporating subtle variations in style according to the country of origin. I love the different borders/motifs, which give each story its own space and identity within the collection.

This version of “The Rabbit in the Moon” comes from India and describes how Rabbit influences all the other animals to aspire to be kind and good. The “great heavenly spirit” disguises himself as a beggar and tests Rabbit’s vow to offer herself as food. Astonished that she attempts to sacrifice herself, he rescues her and sets her in the moon as a shining reminder that “if you give something precious away you may receive something back that is very special.”

This story of the Rabbit in the Moon appears in many different traditions – Cat Mallard at Darbling Wood Studios outlines a different version here, alongside her own whimsical watercolour. This is the version, featuring a fox and a monkey, that is included on the acclaimed Tell Me a Story: Timeless Folktales from Around the World CD, which proved to be an unexpected bedtime hit with The Lovely Mrs Davis’ young son… you can listen to extracts here. Looking Around the World pays a visit to the Tsuki or Moon God Shrine in Japan, where rabbits are particularly venerated – and Sarx has some beautiful photos of a rabbit wood-carving from there too.

Crackle Mountain relates this very different story from Japan of Hare making his way to the City on the Moon, after overcoming the wicked Tanuki (”a raccoon-like dog often mistakenly referred to as a badger”) – it’s a gruesome tale and reminds us of how some traditional stories have been sanitised over the years – but not this one. If you can’t stomach the story, though, I recommend looking at the accompanying artwork – the eighteenth century porcelain dish is exquisite.

And a story, which is definitely not traditional but requires a background awareness of being able to see a rabbit in the moon is Kae Nishimura’s delightfully witty Bunny Lune (Clarion, 2007). We read it again this evening and had a good giggle imagining what our different moons would be – not fields of carrots like Bunny Lune’s!

Take a look at Sandhya Nankani’s post on 30th April on her Literary Safari blog, where she highlights “Sangam House, a new international writers residency program in Pondicherry, India, a town in South India”.

This year, unusually, feast days from many of the world’s religions have fallen around these last few days – so, as Time put it:

unlike some holy days — say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food — on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday…

Today I focus on two books, which each in their own way explore the celebration of one of these religious festivals against a different cultural background.

Mina’s Spring of Colors is a very special story about a young Indian girl who, although she now lives in Canada, is determined to throw a Holi party for her school-friends and neighbors: they won’t just watch the celebrations but participate in them. The book is aimed at 8-11 year olds, though younger children could enjoy having it read to them. It will certainly fill their heads with ideas about how to throw their own Holi party. The author Rachna Gilmore said in an interview with PaperTigers:

I have wonderful memories of Holi – memories of the physical excitement and dread and anticipation of getting others with coloured powders and water and also trying to dodge them in return, the shrieking, hysterical laughter and the wild delight. I don’t know of any readers who have put on a Holi party for themselves, but oh, I do hope some have. Kids love the idea and I know it would be an absolute blast. In one of the libraries I have visited to do a reading, the librarian was very keen on the idea, but of course, we couldn’t use coloured water and powder, so instead, we sprinkled each other with sparklies and squirted those cans that spurt multicoloured streamers. It was great fun.

There are some great pictures from this year’s celebrations in India here (and I can’t resist these from a couple of years ago too!); and you can find out more about Holi here.

Charlotte chose Amelia Lau Carling’s gorgeous, autobiographical picture-book Sawdust Carpets/Alfombras de aserrín as the subject of her first post for the PaperTigers blog, back in May last year; and it’s well worth pointing it out now as a special book for Easter. It exemplifies a harmony of both diversity and fusion of cultures, as we learn about the celebration of Holy Week in Guatemala through the eyes of a young Amelia. Her parents had fled China during the Second World War and had made their new home in Guatemala, as described in Carling’s first book, Mama and Papa Have a Store. As well as insight into her family’s participation in the festivities, we learn about the incredible carpets made of dyed sawdust and millions of flower petals, which everyone joins in making to celebrate Easter:

They are offered up as a sacrifice in anticipation of the procession that will destroy them by marching through the painstaking and fantastic creations.

So whatever you may have been celebrating these last few days, we send you best wishes – do tell us about any special traditions you have, from whatever part of the world you come from; and if you have any favorite books to recommend…

The latest Tiger’s Choice, Naming Maya, by Uma Krishnaswami, is a response to the Books at Bedtime Reading Challenge that was extended to all readers of PaperTigers. Thanks to Marjorie for giving us all a chance to read our way through different countries and cultures–this challenge opens up a whole new reading adventure for those of us who choose to take it.

As Naming Maya unfolds, many of its readers are presented with a new country, new codes of behavior, new flavors, smells, and daily landscapes. The taste of “honey and chili powder” mingled on the tongue, milk delivered by bringing a cow to a doorstep and milking it in view of the person who is soon to drink it, listening to the call of a brain-fever bird, seeing a tree that is adorned with flowers, coins, and a statue of ” the plump, cheery elephant-headed god, Ganesha,” these things are all vividly described and give a glimpse of Chennai, India.

Or it does for me. How about you? As you read, do you see Maya’s new world, and experience her confusion? Do the differing values of her mother’s home country that frustrate this New Jersey girl become clear as the book progresses? And is memory a gift or a curse?

As the Tiger’s Bookshelf progresses on its own adventure of searching for readers who will take part in our online book group, the question persists of how do non-virtual, more conventional book groups solve the dilemma of having members take voice in their group discussions? If you belong to a book group that has found solutions to the silence, please let us know! How do you entice the shyest, least confident members to voice their opinions and express their thoughts?

Maya is one miserable New Jersey girl. Instead of spending the summer with her friend Joanie, she’s in India, the homeland of her parents, with her mother. Maya’s grandfather has died, her mother has inherited his house and is spending every waking moment trying to sell it, with little time left for Maya.

Every time I come to India, it’s like entering another world,” Maya complains, adding to a cousin, “I’m American here, but in America, I’m Indian.” Nobody understands, her mother is busy, and Kamala Mami, the housekeeper who is Maya’s constant companion, lapses frequently into her own strange and invisible world. Maya spends much of her time with her own thoughts, mourning the loss of her father, who moved far away after her mother divorced him.

As Kamala Mami becomes more and more immersed in memories of the past and less attached to the present, Maya leaves her own world of idealized memories to help the old woman whom she has learned to love. How can she bring Mami back to be with her? How can she break through the barrier of loss that separates her from her mother?

Please join us in reading and discussing this wonderful novel. Don’t like it? Tell us why–just don’t give away the ending!