Reading with the daughter

 The first gift we bought for our daughter, when she was a few days old, was a book. It was made of cloth and acted as a pillow, plaything and teether later. When she became old enough to sit and turn rather than eat pages, we were in parental heaven. There were so many Tulika books (https://www.tulikabooks.com/) with splendid Indian art, designed by fancy designers from NID, and told by village people who have kept storytelling alive over bedtimes and their version of fireside chats. My friends, significant other and I spent hours browsing these in shops, ostensibly for daughter.

Daughter grew up drawing, singing, playing sports with her dad – skills I do not possess so could only clap on the side.  Reading continued, but our common interest of Tulika now gave way to she reading whatever her friends were and I to whatever Reese Witherspoon/Bill Gates was. Like all daughters, she had to read what her father did so suddenly both were chatting Sci-fi and I had nothing to contribute – though I am getting excited about Cli-Fi nowadays. Occasional convergence happened over mystery books – Anthony Horowitz, which we read together and Agatha Christies, which she read on turning double digit age and I pretended to remember from 100 years back. Ruskin Bond was a turning point in our reading relationship. I was happy to re-read him and she thankfully turned to him every now and then – after a bad day at school or a particularly bad book. Since then we’ve jointly chuckled and blinked back tears at heart-squeezing passages of many books. Here are some books that we’ve laughed and cried together on

1.       Corfu Trilogy – Gerald and his utterly crazy family suddenly decide to make this island their home. And as luck always favours the crazy, they find doting neighbours who feed them grapes and melons, a driver-cum-carpenter-cum-handyman-but mostly friend, who loves them but hates Turks and Theodore, who is a hesitant speaker but an intrepid collector of bugs and such. The 3 books are a merry cruise down the Potami River, full of food, wine, animals and birds.

2.       All creatures great and small – and others in the series, each Title a line from the hymn ‘All things bright and beautiful’, made daughter laugh so much  that I re-read them. The very proper English vet and his very improper assistant Siegfried have many adventures with temperamental animals and their even more volatile owners.

3.       Gentleman of Moscow- I read this one before we visited Moscow and nagged significant other and daughter to stop everything and read it. Understandably she didn’t for a full year. Especially as they were studying Russian Revolution in school and apparently the book conjured up images of her history teacher – which is not a bad thing of course! Then Count Rostov and Nina got hold of her heart and she bunked many classes, living with them and their kitchen friends, in Hotel Metropol. Now she wants to go back to Moscow and see the Hotel where such a heart-warming story took place.

4.       My Grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry – I postponed reading this forever because what if it didn’t match up to ‘A man called Ove’. But one day daughter and I just took the plunge into our respective kindles. Oh how much we smiled. And gulped and blinked and gulped and blinked. She is not as much of a crier as I, but I did see her shutting her door to read some of the passages alone. And not talk for a bit after a particularly poignant bit. Everyone who has/had/is a granny should read this. And everyone who believes that the only way to overcome bad is to do your little bit of extra good, should read this. And everyone who doesn’t believe this, should positively read it.

5.       100 year old man who jumped out of the window and disappeared – as you can see, we are deeply into long titled Swedish books. This one was such a fun ride, running between different times, different countries. Daughter was happiest about the exotic food that the 100 year old man and his friends were getting to eat and her review of the book prominently mentions that the advantage of helping world leaders is that you get to eat very good food!(https://theuncomplicatedlifeofa15yrold.blogspot.com/2020/09/book-recommendation-100-year-old-man.html)

6.       Boy at the back of the class – this one we read when she was very young, in single digits. She didn’t understand where Syria was or what refugees were. But both of us were equally touched at how the whole world came together to help a little boy get reunited with his mother.

While I may never truly appreciate an Asimov and she a McCall Smith, I am sure we will always find some books that we both feel ‘was the best thing that ever happened to us’.

 

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 [JT1]p