I am a blogger from India and felt like sharing my children’s bookshelves with you. They love reading and I love reading to them. I’ve been gifted a lovely globe by a friend and it is always handy to point out spots when we’re reading a story about a particular country. I am very particular about tidying up their book racks once a fortnight or so and my husband finds it hilarious that I “waste” a perfectly good Sunday morning doing this. Ironically, he’s begun to devote his Sunday morning to helping me out and enjoys it when the kids discover a long-forgotten book at the bottom of the heap. At which point the three of them take themselves off to the bed to read. I don’t mind continuing to tidy up by myself. It’s worth it to just listen to the three of them murmuring and turning pages.

My children are referred to as the Brat and the Bean on my blog and I’d prefer to keep it that way. My son, known as The Brat is 6 and far from a brat – a gentle, animal-loving, peace-loving child. The excitable Bean is my 4-year-old daughter, who believes that you don’t enter a room so much as make an entrance. We live in Gurgaon (India), part of the NCR or the National Capital Region, that includes National Capital territory of Delhi and its adjoining urban areas.

Submitted by: The Mad Momma. (The Mad Momma is also a contributor to Saffron Tree, a potpourri of book reviews and literary resources for children for a lifelong love of reading.)

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

And just to remind you of the wealth of resources and sheer joyful reading out there, here’s a glimpse at some recent blog posts from that rich and varied Indian diaspora, as well as India itself:

Find reviews of Signature: Patterns in Gond Art, edited by Gita Wolf, Bhajju Shyam and Jonathan Yamakami (Tara Books, 2010) and The Yellow Bird by Lila Majumdar, illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta and translated by Kamala Chatterjee over at Saffron Tree. Both books sound and look wonderful…

Read this post from author Uma Krishnaswami, in which she muses on cultural perspectives, and on making unfamiliar words clear through their context in a story…

Mitali Perkins is (sort of) on her winter break from her blog (her back-posts are still worth perusing, though) BUT you can read a new interview with her over at Color on Line, conducted by Tarie of Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind…

A recent post on Pratham Books’ blog, Revamping Mythological and Traditional Indian Stories, will be of particular interest to graphic novel fans; and they also have lots of news and photos from the recent Bookaroo in the City festival in New Delhi…

PaperTigers’ current issue, focusing on children’s literature from India and the Indian diaspora, features personal view pieces by Saffron Tree contributors’ UTBT (Anitha Rumkumar) and Choxbox (Namrata), about Anushka Ravishankar’s books and a young readers’ series on Indian history, respectively. Check them out, on PaperTigers and at their blog! We are big fans of Saffron Tree, and all their talented and passionate contributors, and highly recommend it as a source of excellent multicultural reading material.

Poster artwork by Lavanya Karthik

Head on straight over to Saffron Tree to enjoy their wonderful offerings and to make offerings of your own! Wouldn’t you say it’s always better to share the fruits of one’s literary discoveries with other book lovers than to keep them all to one’s self?

And just a reminder: here at PaperTigers we are still going around the world in 100 bookshelves… and we want to receive your bookshelf pictures and stories, so please keep them coming!