Abhay's new world!

After a tiresome wait of over six months, we find ourselves heaving a sigh of relief that our house renovation work is finally complete! What started out as a “minor alteration” to our existing structure so as to accommodate our overseas belongings, ended up being a full-scale construction both in terms of effort as well as cost and not to forget, time! For months now, the masons, painters and carpenters seemed more like a part of our family! For months, I got used to coming back home to find everything in a state of complete disarray and everyone running short of temper! For months, we felt uprooted with all our furniture and belongings pulled out of their designated spaces in order to make way for the construction work! Now that all the workers are gone and the renovation work complete, at last, it feels as if we’ve got our home back!  Abhay too had his share of grievance with the alteration work as his room was turned into a makeshift kitchen while our actual kitchen was getting an “extreme makeover”! In the bargain, his room got an “image makeover” too. Since our soon to-be-six year old has always been fascinated with places and maps, we had the whole world spread out on one of his walls!  Now the world’s biggest challenge is to get him back into sleeping in his own world…..errr …room! J

With the whole world on his wall, I picked up an around-the-world adventure titled “Madlenka” by Peter Sis. This book starts off  describing the larger picture of where we live. In the universe, on a planet, on a continent, in a country, in a city, on a block, in a house, in a window, in the rain, a little girl named Madlenka finds out that her tooth wiggles. Madlenka is dying to let everyone in the world know that her tooth is loose. How does she manage to do that ? She just skips down her street in New York city to meet her friend Mr. Gatson, the French baker who wisks her away to Paris, the land of Croissants and French Bread. She then approaches Mr. Singh, the newspaper man from India who takes her to the land of ancient kingdoms and the Taj mahal ( Oh..No..not again!) She scoots off to meet Mr. Ciao, the Ice cream man who greets her in quintessential Italian “Buon Giorno” and calls for a treat in the land of spaghetti, gelatos and the leaning Tower of Pisa! Around the corner, she stops by to see Mrs. Grimm from Germany who delights her with stories of Snow White and Slovenly Peter from Germany.  Madlenka is having the time of her life when she meets Mr. Eduardo, the greengrocer from Latin America. As she walks into his store selling fresh flowers, trees, fruits, it feels like she is walking in a rain forest amidst the rain, butterflies, tapirs, parrots, jaguars and snakes. She then heads to meet her African friend, Cleopatra with whom she engages in pretend play as if they are in the Saharan desert. Then she decides to tell Mrs Klam who is from South East Asia, and is soon transported into the land of dragons, samurai swords, green tea and rice. Suddenly, she realizes that she is horribly late and rushes back home to her parents who are upset with her and ask her where she had been. Madlenka tells them that she went around the world and also that she'd just lost her tooth! So a trip around the street can mean a trip around the world! Abhay loved “Madlenka” with its stunning visuals so much that he made me retain this library book until I could not renew it anymore! We also went over all the places featured in the book on his world map! So just like Madlenka…. the world is in your room Abhay…..go ahead…. explore the world!