It was a Friday night and we were all seated at the dinner table. As I served the food my 9-year-old shrieked – “No spinach please!” I could immediately sense my husband’s piercing eyes on me as if asking – “Why doesn’t she have the greens?” Even before his looks could transpire into words I retorted back, “Don’t ask me why !!” My daughter has already fractured her hand twice and sadly both the instances were in my presence. I felt

Lakshmi Mitter’s Top 5 Favourite Books Billionaire Boy by David Walliams Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus by Mo Willems. Gajapathi Kulapathi by Ashok Rajagopalan The Lion’s Feast by Lavanya Karthik The Sky At Our Feet by Nadia Hashimi Best Books For Children to Start Enjoying Reading Puffin Peter by Petr Horacek: An extremely sweet story with amazing illustrations, is a superb read for children of any age. The Elephant & Piggie Series by Mo Willems: These books are

“Think like a trend setter, not a trend follower” says this spirited 29-year-old entrepreneur! Meet Jasleen Khurana, Founder of QwertyThoughts.com, a multilingual social reading, and self-publishing platform where users can connect, discuss and read a book together with other people. She says, “It is like reading a book offline in a group and discussing it with others, but with an added ability to multiply the audience and read it together with people across the world.” Jasleen, often refers to herself as the Chief Everything Officer of

Imagine yourself sitting in the morning, relishing your coffee and just at that precise moment, a pigeon chooses to perch itself on your balcony. Its head bobs as it surveys its surroundings, emitting those throaty sounds while flapping its smelly dirty wings. The coffee just loses its taste as you flap your newspaper at it to scare it into leaving. But the obstinate creatures that they are, they refuse to budge…. you and your coffee be damned. The sound that

Digital Reading Resources vs Traditional Reading Resources -LAKSHMI MITTER The digital world has amazing reading resources. True, children spend a lot of time with gadgets these days and to present reading resources on the tablets is not welcome. Something to ponder about is why we would like to restrict the use of gadgets. Possible reasons are that children spend a lot of time on gadgets, which results in limited physical activity, possibility of the eyes getting strained etc. Reading a

I can still feel the sun rise the the creases of my palms Watch the trees swaying in the breezeDrown in the scintillating threads of moonlight and the serenade of starsThe roads, buildings and shops around all remain the sameNothing much has changed in a year’s time Or so it seems… For I have walked countless milesBeen bruised, battered and fragmented Yet rising each time to rejoin broken pieces In yet another different frameI have lived a countless lives, died

LAKSHMI MITTER 9+ age group If you are a reader who loves subtle humour, Midnight Gang by David Walliams is a must read. The story is about a group of children who become good friends in the last place one can imagine- the children’s ward of a hospital. The hospital building itself is badly maintained and most sign boards have lost letters suggesting funny names. Everything about this hospital is bad except for the children of course, who are adorable.

“I left my job, I didn’t go out anywhere, I stopped enjoying my life because of him, and what did I get in return?” “I worked so hard for my family, sacrificed all my dreams, didn’t spend a penny on myself, and look how ungrateful they are!” “We do so much for our kids, and they don’t care or are thankful.” These are very, very common remarks that we do hear from people all over.  We all have to make