Seven thought-provoking and fun plays for children
The stage is a magical place, where the ordinary transforms into the extraordinary and imagination rules supreme. Discover the wonders of the stage with Good Heavens!. The seven plays in this collection will help you explore different aspects of theatre. While some require interesting sets, props and costumes, others demand imaginative choreography, music, and stage lighting. Good Heavens!, No, Not I and Stone Soup will have the audience doubling up with laughter; Hamsadhwani and A Christmas Miracle will make them ponder and debate; and The White Elephant and The Monster Night throw up unusual problems that children resolve!
In the detailed introduction, the author discusses theatre, its origins, and how to prepare for a production. Meticulous, with step-by-step details on auditions, rehearsals, props, set design, sound, music, costumes and lighting, it acquaints you with the stage and its requirements.
Written by one of India’s most exciting playwrights for children, Good Heavens! is invaluable for all who are interested in children’s plays, and especially those involved in children’s theatre productions.
The popular classic in which good vanquishes evil, now in a pocket-friendly version for children
The Ramayana is one of the best-known epics in the PBI – World-the tale of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, who exiles himself to the forest for fourteen years to honour his father’s word. In the forest, Rama, his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana meet new friends and unusual foes, and each day brings new adventures. But Ravana of Lanka, the king of demons, ruins it all by abducting Sita. To rescue her, Rama enlists the help of Hanuman and his monkey army. In the final battle many heroes die and new ones are born.In this fast-moving version for children, the ancient tale takes on new life. The traditional ingredients are all there-drama and excitement, gods and princes, love and war, infinite stories within stories, monkeys who cross oceans and carry mountains, shape-changing demons and bizarre monsters-but described with freshness and vitality by Bulbul Sharma. This contemporary retelling, which answers questions and provides explanations, is the perfect first Ramayana for everyone.
I’m stuck between poop and school, and I don’t know what to do. Dadu, this is all for you.’
Anu and his grandfather are happiest together, birdwatching in the forest near their home in Seattle, waiting for the barred owl to show up. One day Dadu suddenly dies in the woods, but his see-through spirit stays with Anu. He is desperate to get his grandfather back from the gods. With his best friend Unger, the daring Izzy Mumu next door and help from the Internet, Anu sets out to turn holy enough to perform great wonders. He visits a graveyard, shaves his head like a sadhu, lives on offerings of sandwiches and water, and rolls all the way to school-through rain and poop-like Ludkan Baba. In the end, the only hope he has left is Karnak, the awesome magician at the Mystery Museum on Divine Island . . .
What happens when Anu finally finds himself face-to-face with Karnak-and a truth that he cannot escape? Find out in this warm and funny story about how a boy deals with being foreign, being bald and being separated from someone he loves like crazy.
Eight schoolgirls from the hills on a tour of Agra, drive into Delhi the day Indira Gandhi is assassinated. They run into a violent, crazed mob that pulls their jovial old driver Kartar Singh out and slays him brutally. In a blazing city lashed by violence, the girls flee to seek refuge. They find it in an elegant and apparently empty house but is it safe? Its gallery of forbidding masks and medieval weapons is alarming enough, but worse, it is a house marked by the vicious mob because it belongs to a rich Sikh family with two children. In an adventure gone dreadfully wrong, all that the girls can think of is going home, but the vengeful enemy is right at the door! Led by sixteen-year-old Puja, a masterful archer but with her own personal demons to fight, the girls have to tackle one threat after another, including a chicken thief in their midst. Mustering their wisdom, stealth, cunning and courage, they valiantly keep their conscienceless attackers at bay until they are finally plunged into a quandary where there is only hair’s breadth between killing and being killed. A gripping and powerful story, The Battle for No. 19 highlights the moral dilemmas of young people in today’s world where violence erupts round every corner, and the line between right and wrong runs dangerously thin.
Hop on to a super fragilistic story-tour that will take you far and wide to places you have never been and people you have never seen. Meet Chicken Mama, the spiky-haired medicine woman who can move Time backwards; Mokel-embe-embe, the world’s last dinosaur, about to be captured by British explorers; Spooky95768939123, the ghost in danger of becoming extinct; and Manto the Degree Master, equally expert at calligraphy and ‘chumpy’. Salute freedom fighter Shankarrao and his defiant chappal-throwing; and tag along with old Das Babu to Bombay’s Hanging Gardens, Arabia and the yucky-mucky footpath; and find out if Asha and Dhiren are ever able to fool the very clever Chachaji. There’s never a dull moment in this selection of unusual stories. From the laughable antics of Sammy the penguin to the secret of the snake-stone in the Himalayan meadows to Epsilon the biologist’s Amazonian hunt for the rare How-D’You-Do Bird-each story in this exciting collection introduces you to real characters you will never forget and imaginary ones you will want desperately to meet.
This story is packed with the weirdest, meanest and funniest assortment of ghouls, witches, and Yogis.
A collection of all-time favourite school stories. Meet the world’s naughtiest boys and girls, the best and the worst students and some really famous children in this book as they make their way through school. Read about David Copperfield and his friendship with Steerforth, Tom Brown trying to find his feet in Rugby school, and Jane Eyre fighting poverty and disease in a school for orphans. Not to forget those other irrepressible and immortal boys, Richmal Crompton’s William Brown, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, RK Narayan’s Swami and Ruskin Bond’s Rusty. Also included are stories from such classics as Anne of Avonlea, Little Men, Stalky and Co., and To Sir, With Love. By turns hilarious and heartwarming, these classic tales are about growing up and the time spent in that one place which is so beloved to some and so hated by others-school.
Meet Pooch, the mongoose along with scorpions, crabs, centipedes and other insects and reptiles in the pages of this charming little book as they talk about their habits and eccentricities – in verse! Did you know that the cobra cannot hear, and ‘dances’ because it is following the movements of the snake charmer’s flute? That the hermit crab does not have a shell of its own and has to go about looking for one that fits? And what, exactly, does the cockroach feel when you flee screaming from it? Crackling with wit, and full of fun facts, these poems by the author of the widely acclaimed “Cobra in My Kitchen”, are a must read for poetry and nature lovers alike.
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The forests of India are not only home to a wide variety of animals and birds but also teem with committed conservationists, naturalists and nature lovers. After spending many years with wildlife, these men and women bring us fascinating stories of their experiences and encounters.
Cliff Rice, an animal explorer, camps for two years in the mountains of Kerala and befriends the Nilgiri tahr with fistfuls of salt. Ralph Morris, one of the first British coffee planters in the Biligirirangan Hills of Karnataka, goes on a ‘tiger beat’ and ends up chasing a pair of tigers towards his daughter, who is armed only with pebbles to defend herself. Sally Walker comes to India to learn yoga and Sanskrit but spends years caring for baby chimpanzees and tiger cubs in zoos instead. Rom Whitaker, a reptile conservationist, sets off on an international hunt for giant crocodiles that takes him from Orissa to Egypt, and Manish Chandi tells a fascinating tale about Meroe—the rumbling Nicobar island—where he studied sea turtles and other wildlife.
Zai Whitaker, herself a nature writer and author of well-loved children’s books, brings together in this collection the writings of eminent wildlife experts such as Bittu Sahgal, Ian Lockwood, Ramachandra Guha and many others. Filled with anecdotes that are at once incredible and informative, The Rumbling Island is an entertaining account of India’s most precious natural asset—our forests.
