What shall I wear?

My little one has been a mini-fashionista ever since she learned to utter the word “Adalla” (“not that” in Kannada) and from then on, she would pretty much veto anything and everything I would pick out for her to wear and choose her own outfit for the day! It had been a formidable task to get her to wear her Montessori school uniform on the only two days of a five day week that required the students to don their uniform and just imagine what a mammoth effort it took for us to get her accustomed to wearing the school uniform “every single day” in her current school! “What shall I wear now” dominates her mind space and conversation with her nanny as she gets off her school bus in the afternoon and on most days, she greets me in the evening as I return home from work with “Amma, what shall I wear at bedtime today?” She would insist on a change of clothes even when accompanying me to the next door Kirana store for milk, or as she heads to my office (which is a portion of the ground floor of my house) or pillion rides the scooter with her dad to drop her brother to his bus pick-up point down our street! No matter what the book is about, it is always “what the girl is wearing” or “what sort of footwear has she worn” or “what kind of hairstyle is she sporting” that first draws her attention and trust me….she couldn’t be bothered about the boys at all! (At least for now!). Running short of ideas to engage her during the lock-down situation, we’ve given her a free rein to pull out whatever she likes from her wardrobe –  from traditional Indian wear to fancy party wear, from her various fancy dress-like outfits bought during our travels to her earlier school day costumes …. our little style icon isn’t complaining about being “All dressed up but nowhere to go! 😊

So I have always wanted to lay my hands on Pratham’s “What shall I wear” by Natasha Sharma but as you have would have it with many Pratham books , it was out of stock in most places I inquired. (Of course most Pratham books are available online on storyweaver, but it is not the same thing as cuddling with your little one at bedtime with her favourite book or when she pulls out the book during her alone-time and pours over her favourite character!)   So imagine my delight when I came across “Snack time Story time” hosted by Natasha Sharma based on her books on Facebook last week which also featured  “What shall I wear” a Level 2 reader by Pratham Publications authored by Natasha Sharma and illustrated by Tanvi Bhat. Its wonderful when the author introduces the book as he or she always lets in a snippet or two on the author’s story behind the story and it turns out that Natasha  Sharma was inspired by her then six year old daughter’s love for clothes that lead to the book and we also got to see how her not-so-little-fashionista took the same forward to now designing her own clothes! Anyway, the book is about a little girl who is in a predicament that most of us often find ourselves in …none of her clothes feel right!  Sometimes it’s the discomfort of the shirt buttons, or the pant being too tight, or choli not fitting or the lehenga being too long, so on and so forth driving the little girl  to the wardrobe of her mother and brother with no luck! Read on to find a do-it-yourself-creative solution arrived by the little girl in tweaking her wardrobe a little with an intelligent mix and match….and voila!… she has a new outfit! Now ….isn’t that true for all of us too!  A laugh-out read  for our fastidious little divas who have us on our wit's end  in trying to fulfill their fashion demands!   Just as we were about to log on to Youtube for another story telling session …....…Aadya stopped me to ask “Amma what shall I wear for the story-time?” !!!:-)