School Stories!

A portion of this post was first published in  Parent Edge blog

With the arrival of my second child, my life seems to have been put on hold and has become home-bound for now and is all about nursing, burping, changing nappies, swaddling the baby to sleep and so on and so forth. But for the others around me…life goes on like before…school has reopened, there’s office to go to, there are routine things to take care of and so and so forth! Especially my older one (probably the first time Abhay is being referred this way) now a fourth grader, who doesn’t seem to cut me any slack at all! J Why should his baby sister’s colic evenings come in the way of letting out his frustration at having been separated from his friends at school? Who can blame his irritation at not being able to discuss his cricketing feats at school with his mom without any interruptions like before?? Frankly, while it may not seem so, I do empathize with him for having to vie with his baby sister for his mother’s attention.  Well….. school has begun and so have his routine weekly activities …that’s what matters to him the most!  I understand….but believe me, it is tough to be all ears to his who-did-what reports from school with a wailing baby at hand!

Though Abhay’s school reopened a month ago, I haven’t had much time with him as he continues to operate from our house ( thanks to my husband and my mother-in-law!) while I have been staying at my mom’s place. So while the daddy is in charge of our older one through the week, I am with our little one and we try to swap places during the weekend ( if that’s actually possible!). So its only last weekend that I got time to read a back-to-school book to help him kick start this academic year! 

Though I have read many  school stories before, this time I picked out a compilation that is more complex and layered,  titled “School Stories” by Paro Anand meant more for kids aged ten and above. Since some of the stories were beyond Abhay’s reading level, I read them out while Abhay listened on. This collection brought out by Scholastic publications sensitively portrays the  angst, confusion, trials and tribulations most adolescents face while having to grapple with various challenges in their school lives! It is interesting to note that almost all the stories are narrated in first person and this if not anything else is sure to strike a chord with the tweens and teens at home. Though the school years during high school seem tough….it is only when we are out of it do we realize that they were probably the best years of growing up! Each story by Paro Anand echoes such a sentiment ….. from the story of Pratap who almost succumbs to the temptation to cheat to Gita’s bold move of wanting to play the part of the protagonist in a play despite her stammering problem or the hilarious exchange of correspondence between parents and their son studying in a boarding school facing a cash crunch! Besides being brilliantly written all stories present a delightful inter-play of humour, reflection and reality-check for today’s youth! Though I am a little late….here’s wishing all the kids and their parents……..have a great school year ahead! J