Mythil's Secret by Prashani Rambukwella

When I was young I read the usual things starting with Enid Blyton, then Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket etc etc. Basically I didnt read any Sri Lankan authors as a child. Heck! I didn't even read Indian authors. So when I picked up Mythil's Secret at the book fair for my neice, I intended to do a quick read and then give it to her, and guess what? I am getting another one for her, this one is mine. OK, so I loved the book and yes its a children's book but it is intelligent, it respects the child and therefore it is a cute read for adults as well. Mythil's Secret is about yakas and a little boy who realises he has the gift of seeing them. Prashani Rambukwella didn't write a sweet idyllic all is well with the world story for children, what she did was to create a world that balances real life (fighting parents and worries about money) with the fantasy world of the yakas. OK, so there are good yakas and bad yakas, there are strong yakas and weak yakas, there is a bahirawaya who is cool to die! There are yakas who impersonate humans and then there is Mythil. The unlikely hero, who is an only child who worries obsessively about his parents fighting and is aware of their money problems. Such a welcome relief from the spoilt brats you generally see around (take a look at my neice's classmates!) One holiday when Mythil is dumped at his Aachie's who lives in a village near a little forest, he realises that he can see into another world. Thus begins the adventure. Soon Mythil is seeing everyone as a yaka. The beauty of this story, though perhaps its only adults who may realise it, is that it could be that Mythil because of his family problems is retreating into a fantasy world. Even his parents think so and thus enters a child psychologist to counsel Mythil. But Mythil is suspicious of her, she could be a yaka, her friends could be yakas, who can he trust. The nice thing about this book is that it is a book that any child can relate to. Ok, so I am not the horrible aunt you think I am, I did give my neice her book and asked her what she thought. Her verbal skills are not that advanced as her aunt's obviously because she said it was "Cool!" For me 'cool' is good. It means that she didnt wrinkle her nose and go: "What a lame book, how goday." Then she tells me that some of her other friends from other schools (not her posh school mind you) are doing Mythil's secret as a school text. Hurrah! If only we had such interesting school texts I might have paid attention. Right now, I cannot remember a single school text that I did. Just goes to show. Anyway, Mythil's Secret in my books is a winner - and of course how could I forget, it did win the Gratiaen early this year. So even other people thought so.

Keerthihan's Kite - story by Sandi Titus, illustrations by Anura Srinath

My neice who is around five, got what I thought was a fabulous present for a book. I am still not sure where it's available or how much it cost, but I am sure bookshops like Odel and Barefoot will have it.

One of the problems I have about Sri Lankan books for children is that either they are boring or they are badly done. The writing is bad, the illustrations are bad and there are so many mediocre books around, you wonder how parents can buy any of it for their kids. There are exceptions of course, I have seen a few nicely done children's books, one of my earlier reviews was on MilkRice that still remains my favourite present for kids. But the general rule is that children's books need to improve here in Sri Lanka.

Now this book looks expensive and I presume it is expensive. This makes me wonder how many people would pick it up for their kids. But as the saying goes: Good things no cheap; cheap things no good. But the book looks good that much is obvious.

This book is primarily for little children and an older child of 5-6 might like to look at it on his own. But best of all, it seems to be a good introduction to the English, Sinhala and Tamil languages. Yes, you read that right. Keerthihan's Kite is a trilingual book for children.

I have not heard of the author or illustrator: Sandi Titus and Anura Srinath respectively, but one name I recognized in the credits is Michael Meyler (who brought out that most entertaining book, Dictionary of Sri Lankan English).

The story is rather simple. Keerthihan, a little boy who lives in Jaffna, wants to fly his own kite, like the big boys around. He decides to make his own kite and after a series of disasters, he eventually makes a kite that can fly.

Each page has only one sentence written out in all three languages. Sometimes the first sentence is written in English but not always. Sinhala and Tamil, also have their turn at being on top. The rest of the page is devoted to brightly coloured illustrations that make the page very attractive.

Towards the back of the page, you have an interesting feature. There is a transliteration of Sinhala and Tamil in English. This is of course not going to help you to learn the Sinhala and Tamil script but it is certainly a first step to start learning any of the other two languages. It is excellent for Sinhala and Tamil readers to learn English as well.

Right at the very end of the book is a DVD that has the narration of the book in all three languages, with basic animation of the illustrations found in the book. I thought it was very very nicely done.

To my mind, perhaps a few parents will see the value of this book and pick it up for their children but more importantly it is a book that schools and libraries should be forced to buy, if they don't happen to see its worth straight away.

In this day and age when we know it is so important to learn all three languages of Sri Lanka, it is a good start to see a book like this in the market. I hope more trilingual books will be produced in the future.

MILKRICE by MANY AUTHORS

In this day and age, when children would rather play computer games and game boy, it is difficult to find an alternative that would hold them spell bound for hours. So it is in this context that I trawled through some recent children’s books and came across a book that had been published last year. Like any other plebian, I judge a book by its cover and the cover was nice, bright and attractive. The book was a collection of stories for children and was called MilkRice – another catchy title, I thought, that gave no indication of what was inside the book, but was still Sri Lankan enough to say a lot.
There are nine stories that cover a range of situations. Instead of repeating each and every story, to fill space let me tell you what I liked.
I liked that all the stories were imaginative, Sri Lankan (I liked that part a lot actually), short, simple and easy to read. The target audience would be I think around 9 years old, perhaps a parent could read it to a 5 year old. Anyway, I also liked that some big names had got together to write stories for children. Authors like Faith Ratnayake, Neluka Silva, Lal Medawattegedera and Premini Amerasinghe, had contributed. I loved the little drawings that accompanied each story, giving it a Sri Lankan touch. I also liked that the stories would give the Sri Lankan child a vehicle to identify what it is like to grow up in Sri Lanka, rather than for them to read stories set in the West and for them to read about valleys and dales, crumpets and jam, rosy cheeks and ski holidays.
I liked that all the stories had a moral, some subtle some not so subtle. For instance, there were stories that spoke about being humane to animals, another story was about bullying. Two stories were about fabulous imagination, another two stories were about difference and how it should not matter to us, and one story about child soldiers. The most sophisticated story was about the child soldiers, the most imaginative story was the one about hats. The story my nephews and nieces loved was the one about the cat, rat and snake. And the story that my little cousin adored having read to her was the one about the aeroplane. All this goes to show that this is a little gem of a collection for Sri Lankan kids. Something about ten years ago, children didn’t have. A book of stories to call their own.