Paper Play!

As a kid, I was never into arts or crafts and envied others who had a natural flair for it. In fact, I used to turn to my mom for all my craft projects in school. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the roles would switch and my son would expect the same from me! Abhay loves cutting, pasting, drawing and framing and other crafts activities and his favorite show on Television is Mister Maker, the arts and crafts show on Cbeebies. But he doesn’t stop with just watching the show, but wants to recreate the same or rather wants me to don the role of Mistress Maker of home!

Not sure if I can live up to his expectations, the least I can do is read “Paper Play” written by Mala Kumar and illustrated by Ruchi Shah, a level 2 Early Reader from Pratham publications. A sheet of paper flies in from the window into Manju’s room. Manju picks it up and tries to draw the sun on it. Not very pleased with her drawing, she crumples it up and throws it out of the window when it falls it on Wasim’s head who thinks it’s a ball and plays ‘catch’ with his sister Syeda. Syeda picks up the paper ball and sticks a pencil into it and pretends to lick it as a lollipop and then offers it to her friend Bittu. Bittu rolls up the paper lollipop and sings a song holding it as a mike! After Bittu’s scintillating performance of a film song into his paper mike,  Manju reclaims the crumpled sheet of paper and smoothens it and makes a paper boat which Bittu rides with Wasim, who then folds it up and cuts its corners into a semicircle. He then unfolds the sheet of paper with a circle in the center and asks his friends to pose for his paper camera. Finally, Anil comes in with his donkey and draws lines around the circle to resemble a sun – as originally intended by Manju! But the finishing touch is lent by Anil’s pet donkey who grabs the paper sun and gobbles it up with a burp! Abhay loved the story and I know what to expect as I get back from work tomorrow! So it’s not just a piece of paper – its paper play!