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As one of the books in our PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge (and I’ll be bringing you a full update on that later on in the week), Younger Brother and I have read together Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (Granta Books, 1990). My brother gave a first edition to my boys several years ago but this is the first time we’ve read it – and I see that it is now available in many editions, with a lovely array of book covers, which I can’t resist including here (and see this project book cover/splash page from Art Slug).
But back to the story. We both adored it. I was practically tied down at bedtimes and made to read on. For any child (or adult) who loves words and playing with language and ideas, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Haroun’s father, the Shah of Blah, has lost his story-telling Gift of the Gab because his wife has left him. Haroun, who has become a little jaded with his father’s focus on fiction himself, soon finds himself in possession of Iff, a Water Genie’s Disconnector and spinning into a spiral of adventures. He discovers that stories are physically real and that the balance of human happiness is being threatened because the menacing land of Chup, where it is always night, is poisoning the Sea of Stories, despite all the attempts to keep it clean by the happy land of Gup across the water, where it is always light…
Haroun meets a wonderful array of characters – as well as Iff, there is Butt, the oxymoronically magical mechanical hoopoe depicted on the book’s cover; Bagha and Goopy, two of the plentimaw fishes who swim in the sea (don’t you just love it?!), Mali the Head Floating Gardener, and many more – and of course, there are also the often shadowy baddies, led by the terrifying Khattam-Shud. Despite all the P2C2E, Processes Too Complicated To Explain (I told you you’d love it!), Haroun finds a way to help his new friends, and in so doing restores the balance of happiness to his own life.
Yes, this is definitely one of the most wonderful readalouds we’ve shared. The prose is like poetry – you almost chew the words. We relished the huge, unanswerable questions that the book explores – what is Reality? What is Story? Who is that character, that person… who am I? – as well as the allegories of light and darkness (which make this so relevant to an adult as well as a young audience), environmental responsibility and empathy. And we revelled in each little bit of wordplay, from character names to gleeful patter.
If your child enjoys stories of worlds within worlds, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or the Harry Potter series, they will love Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 3/25/2011
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It’s not too late to join this year’s Reading the World Challenge if you haven’t already – just take a look at this post for details.
In our family we have all joined together and read picture books set in Mongolia, which is our current focus on PaperTigers. I had to hunt around a bit but we came up with a good selection. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail here as they are all gathered up in my Personal View, Taking a step into children’s books about Mongolia. We have really enjoyed delving into the culture and heritage of Mongolia and these picture books have been read all together and individually.
One bedtime Older Brother read Horse Song: the Naadam of Mongolia by Ted and Betsy Lewin (Lee and Low, 2008) to Little Brother – quite a long read and they were both engrossed. Watching them from the outside, as it were, I came to an added appreciation of the dynamics of Ted and Betsy’s collaboration, both in the energy of their shared enthusiasm and participation in the events surrounding the famous horse-race, and also of being struck by a busy, crowded scene one page and then giggling at the turn of expression on an individual study’s face the next.
And I’ll just share with you Little Brother’s reaction to Suho’s White Horse, which you can read about in a bit more detail in my Books at Bedtime post earlier this week:
It was a moving story. The governor made me angry because he broke his word and was cruel to Suho and his horse.
[Listening to the musical version played on the Mongolian horsehead fiddle, the morin khuur] Once you know the story, you can tell which part of the music is telling which part of the story. How do they make that music with just two strings? It fills me with awe.
I also read The Horse Boy: A Father’s Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson (Viking, 2009), an amazing story of a family’s journey to Mongolia in search of horses and shamans to seek healing for the torments that were gripping their five-year-old autistic son’s life: as Isaacson puts it with great dignity, his “emotional and physical incontinence”. If you have already read this humbling, inspiring book (and even if you haven’t), take a look at this recent interview three years on from their adventurous journey. Now I need to see the film!
And talking of films (which we don’t very often on PaperTigers, but I can’t resist mentioning this one), The Story of the Weeping Camel is a beautiful, gentle film that takes you right to the heart of Mongolian life on the steppe. Who would have thought a documentary film about a camel could be so like watching a fairy tale? Don’t be put off by the subtitles – our boys love this film. Take a look at the trailer –
Well, here it is at last, this year’s PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge. I know some of you have been on tenterhooks but there’s one advantage to announcing it a little late. All your other challenges should be well assimilated by now, and adding one more shouldn’t be too much of a trial… Anyway, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it 
The Challenge for the last two years has revolved around geographical boundaries, as is perhaps to be expected of a World focused challenge – however, following deep consultation with Little Brother (9), we have come up with an extra geographical consideration this year. We have also decided to make the time factor as flexible as possible, in the hope that some teachers/librarians might be tempted to engage children in the Challenge during school term time. So without further ado, we present the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge 2011:
1. Choose six books from/about/by or illustrated by someone from different countries anywhere in the world, 3 of which must be in different continents.
2. Choose one book from/about your city/district – as local and as relevant to your geographical setting as you can find.
3. You should choose at least one book of each of the following: fiction, poetry and non-fiction.
4. Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class. Combine your choices with other reading challenges.
5. There is no time limit for this year’s Challenge, apart from completing it by the end of the year.
Do join us, and keep us posted as to how you’re doing – we love reading all your posts. You can find lots of ideas in the PaperTigers Reviews and Reading Lists sections, as well as in many of our Personal Views – or do let us know your own suggestions.
Happy Reading!
And P.S. If anyone would like the code for adding the button to their blog, please email me – marjorie(at)papertigers(dot)org.
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 8/23/2010
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Our summer holidays are nearly over and the Reading the World Challenge is nearly running away with me in terms of posting about the books we’ve read – so without further ado, here’s the latest installment, including the long overdue catch-up with our fellow readers…
Together we have read the delightful 
Lulie the Iceberg by Her Royal Highness Princess Takamado and illustrated by Warabe Aska (Kodansha America, 1998), which Sally wrote about a while ago – her post prompted us to get hold of it: and we did, indeed, love it. We read the actual story one evening and then spent several evenings after that reading the factual information at the end, while hunting again and again for the various creatures mentioned in the gorgeous illustrations. Read Sally’s post for a synopsis of the story…
Meanwhile, Older Brother has read Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard (Clarion Books, 2001):
A Single Shard is about a young boy called Tree-ear in 12th Century Korea, who loves watching a potter called Min making vases grow from the wheel. Then Tree-ear starts working for Mon (but he’s not allowed to actually make things) and goes on a long journey to the emperor with some pottery to seek a commission – but he is tricked by robbers on the way…
It’s a very exciting story. It made me feel happy and sad at different times: and the ending was probably the saddest part of all, though it did eventually turn out to be for the best.
Little Brother has also read a book set in Antarctica – but I have to confess that I have mislaid the notebook in which he wrote his mini-review, which he will be quite unimpressed about. I will try and remedy the situation asap.
In the meantime, what of everyone else in all these weeks that have elapsed since my last update?
Corinne has read Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, of which she says, “It won Honorable Mention for Adult Fiction in the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. I loved Lisa’s previous book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and this book did not disappoint either. Highly recommend it especially for all those “historical novel” lovers like me.”
Olduvai at Olduvai Reads has completed the Challenge – Hooray! You can find links to her reviews for all the books she read here…
Tiina of A Book Blog of One’s own has read The Lovers of Algeria by Anouar Benmalek and The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge…
And I’m so glad Jama at Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup has joined in too. She’s been reading a wonderful selection of picture books about Asia and Asian Americans, focusing on
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By:
Aline Pereira,
on 4/29/2010
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Well, we’ve finally started this year’s Reading the World Challenge in our household!
As our together-read, we’re “doing” Europe at the moment. We’re about half way through Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which I’m really enjoying, since it’s a good few years since I read it, and the boys are revelling in. I suggested it because I was getting a bit fed up with continued allusions to Oliver via the musical Oliver! and felt (poor kids, purist that I am!) that they needed to get back to grass roots here… 
I did wonder if we were biting off a bit more than we could chew but in fact they are completely caught up by the narrative and Dickens would be happy with his effect on their social consiousness/consciences! It’s definitely proving to be one of those books that they wouldn’t read on their own but that, with frequent, unobtrusive asides to gloss the meanings of words, they are more than able to enjoy having read to them. It’s just very long and now that term-time is back in full swing, it’s hard getting the sustained reading time all together that we would like.
We have also read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (David Fickling Books, 2006). This is an extraordinarily powerful book about a nine-year-old German boy, Bruno, who becomes an unwitting witness of the Holocaust when his father becomes the Commandant of “Outwith” concentration camp (as Bruno mistakenly calls it), and who makes friends with a Jewish boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the perimeter fence. If you have read this breath-taking, punch-in-the-stomach book, do take a look at the discussion that Janet got underway here on PaperTigers on the Tigers Bookshelf. Although it says on the back cover that despite being a book about nine-year-olds, “this is not a book for nine-year-olds”, and I therefore, again, had some reservations of reading it with the boys, I was glad we did. Because we were reading it together (and not at bedtime – this is definitely not a book to read just before you go to sleep), we couldn’t read it in one sitting as has been recommended – but we all mulled over it deeply and all brought our own ages to it. I know that Little Brother’s nine-year-old perspective was very different to mine (as, indeed was Older Brother’s), but it was still valid; and I hope they will both read it again independently when they are older.
Little Brother’s own read was also focused on Europe with Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís – this is what he says about it:
I liked The Starry Messenger because you could always recognise Galileo in the pictures because there were always stars near him. Sometimes he was wearing them and sometimes he was drawing them in the sand. It was hard to rea
We have yet to start the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge in our household – the boys are getting geared up to have their first book read by the end of this month for their individual reads, but I’ve decided to wait till April to start on our readaloud together, to take advantage as much as possible of school holidays. They both seem to have so many different evening activities during term-time that reading to both of them at the same time has become a challenge in itself!
However, it is definitely time for a round-up of those people who have been reading already – and it’s great that the Challenge has been taken up for “grown-up” reading too. Sometimes I get so immersed in children’s books that I lose sight of books written for “my age” – but there are some fantastic booklists appearing on various blogs, which means that I now have an enormous list of books I want to read!
Susan at Black-Eyed Susan, from Detroit, Michigan, US, leapt in straight away with two books – Faith by Maya Ajmera, Magda Nakassis and Cynthia Pon (a Global Fund for Children Book/Charlesbridge, 2009) – which was recently a PaperTigers Book of the Month; and 14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy, Thomas Gonzalez, Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah (Peach Tree, 2009).
PaperTigers’ own Corinne, in Vancouver, Canada, has read The Shepherd’s Grand-Daughter by Anne Laurel Carter (Groundwood/House of Anansi, 2008).
Eva at A Striped Armchair, who lives in the U.S. Rockies, has already chosen the countries she is going to focus on in each continent and has put together what she calls a pool of books to choose from – I would call it a sparkling lake – if you’re looking for inspiration, dive in – so far, she has read The God Who Begat a Jackal by Nega Mezlekia. And an aside – just take a look at the wonderful maps Eva produced of the books she read in 2009…
Tiina at A Book Blog of One’s Own, in Helsinki, Finland, has posted reviews of her first two reads – she covered Asia in January with Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali and Europe in February with The River by Rumer Godden.
Edi at Crazy Quilts has also ticked off a couple of continents with one of my favorite reads of 2009, Rukhsana Khan’s Wanting Mor; and a new one to me that has gone onto my to-be-read list: The Other Hand by Chris Cleave – which she points out is published as Little Bee in the US.
Olduvai at Olduvai Reads, in the Bay Area of San Francisco, has also, like Eva, produced an extensive reading list for the count
A very Happy New Year to all our readers old and new – in the words of our current editorial over on the PaperTigers website, all of us on the PaperTigers team wish you a 2010 filled with books, peace and understanding!
…And in order to help you ensure that you have plenty of books to read, it’s time to launch our Reading the World Challenge for 2010. You may have noticed that this year we have a wonderful new widget (Thank you, Eun Ha!): please do use it on your blog if you have one; and if you don’t, do let us know about your book-choices – we would love to feature them here. I know there are many book-challenges out there but do join us if you can.
The criteria will be the same as last year, with one slight difference. You can choose at what point between January and June your 7-month period begins, in order to have completed the Challenge by the end of the year. So here’s what we have to do:
Choose one book from/about/by or illustrated by someone from each of the seven continents – that’s:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America
Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class. Combine your choices with other reading challenges.
The books can be picture-books, poetry, fiction, non-fiction… the choice is yours.
You can find lots of ideas in the PaperTigers Reviews and Reading Lists sections – and if you have any ideas you’d like to suggest to people joining in from different continents, please do!
Happy Reading!
Last week Black-Eyed Susan had a bit of a rant and threw down the gauntlet to “teen bloggers and those who blog for teens”. Read her post and you’ll understand why. And then consider taking up the challenge:
I’m making a 30-day challenge here. From now until August 30th, how many multicultural books will you read and review on your blog? Don’t know what to read or how to make this a success? Join us for CORA Diversity Roll Call and check out books reviewed for the Diversity Rocks! Challenge.
We’ve been incorporating the Diversity Rocks! Challenge into our reading for the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge, and will be continuing with it until the end of the year… we’ll see how we do in August too.
If you’re stuck for ideas, look no further than Susan’s fantastic Unofficial List of Great YA Books by or About Women of Color.
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 3/22/2009
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It seems to have taken a while to get this year’s PaperTigers Round the World Reading Challenge off the ground in our house – but we’re flying now! We’re following a similar pattern to last year: a readaloud and the boys each reading their own choices…
The book we all read together was Planting the Trees of Kenya, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago…
Older Brother, 10½, has read The Cat who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth and illustrated by Raoul Vitale (Aladdin Paperbacks, 2008). First published in 1930, this is a short, beautifully written fable which centres around the Buddhist legend that the Buddha blessed all animals except the cat because a certain cat “was not overcome with awe”. It was a Newberry winner and was discussed recently, as it happens, in a fascinating post on The Newberry Project blog, which is where my quotation above comes from. The story certainly worked its charm on Older Brother:
It’s about an artist in Japan and his housekeeper bought a cat instead of their food with their money. They were very poor so the artist was not happy with her at first but then after a while he was able to start selling paintings. Then a priest came to his house and ordered a picture of the Buddha’s tomb and all the animals he blessed. He blessed every animal except the cat so the artist did not draw the cat at first – but his cat always looked upset that there wasn’t a cat in the painting so the last thing he did was paint a cat in it… and I’m not going to tell you what happened but there was a miracle.
It is actually a beautiful story. You know, there was a shelf in the artist’s room and the cat sat and looked at a special statue of the Buddha belonging to the artist and they both prayed in front of it. I like art and I thought that I was actually standing there watching it happening (that happens to me quite a lot in books, by the way – sometimes I think I’m the main character, sometimes I’m up in a tree watching).
And Little Brother, just turned 8, read Grandpa’s Indian Summer, the second of Jamila Gavin’s three Grandpa Chatterji books (Egmont, 2006 – and you can read PaperTigers’ full review here):
I loved this book. Especially the bit where Sanjay eats all the cakes and then he gets scared because all the ants come and he jumps onto the metal chest with all the cakes in. Everyone’s looking for him. And he’s got two cakes in his hands and he eventually gets found. Then Grandpa Chatterji gets into trouble because he’d been eating cakes and Sanjay found him and wanted to have some too, so it’s all Grandpa Chatterji’s fault!
I really liked the last page. The last sentence was the best!
It made me want to go to India because it’s a wonderful, colourful place. And I also like peacocks, although there aren’t any in the book. I also want to play cricket – and that is in the book!
Do let us know how you are getting on with our Reading the World Challenge – or if you haven’t started yet, here’s what it’s all about - there’s still plenty of time…
January is moving on apace so there’s no time to lose! It’s time for this year’s PaperTigers Reading Challenge! Last year, we set about reading five books from/about/by someone from each of the five geographical areas on the PaperTigers map - but this year, as we have spread our wings all the way around the world, our Reading Challenge is going to do the same.
So, without further ado, here it is:
Choose one book from/about/by or illustrated by someone from each of the seven continents - that’s:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America
Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class.
The books can be picture-books, poetry, fiction, non-fiction… the choice is yours.
Tell us what you have chosen/read, as and when, by leaving comments on our monthly updates - and complete the Challenge by the end of July 2009!
There are plenty of ideas for books in the PaperTigers Reviews and Reading Lists sections - and if you have any ideas you’d like to suggest to people joining in from different continents, please do!
It would also be great to join this to the Diversity Rocks! Challenge - this is a wonderfully adaptable challenge: it includes levels for The Overlapper, or even the Non-Joiner, which asks you to read one book by an author of color by the end of February 2009… Or if you’re a “Challenge Addict”:
Commit to reading 6 books, 12 books, or 24 books by authors of color in 2009. If you already read a lot of authors in one group, branch out.
Pick one or more of your challenges and commit to read four different authors of color: perhaps a black author, a Latino author, an Asian author, and a Native American author.
Well, I think at that point you could be an Overlapper AND an Addict, both while taking the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge!
We’ll be following a similar programme to last year - each month, we’ll have one read-aloud and each of my boys will also choose their own. We’ll keep you posted - and I hope you will too!
