The Mystery of the missing Iguana

Book Title: The Mystery of the missing Iguana
Author: Ruchira Khanna
Genres: Kids
Rating: 4

Alex and his pet chimpanzee Angelo are the young detectives of their neighborhood. When a friend's pet Iguana goes missing, Alex and Angelo immediately take on the case, and the sneaky reptilian leads them on an exciting chase. How will alex and Angelo use their sleuthing skills to solve this mystery?

Review

Meet Alex & his pet chimp, Angelo and watch them in action solving the case of a missing Iguana. What a delightful little story! I absolutely love to introduce new things to my toddler through books and this book made me think, mystery? Why not? Infact, what fun! 

Silly animals - Horton hatches the Egg.

This is an activity to go with the book 'Horton hatches the Egg' by Dr.Seuss that I did for Indian Moms Connect.

Have you read this month's recommendation from IMC, Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr.Seuss? I loved it! The beauty of the book is that there are hidden treasures in the book that when unraveled will make it all the more fun for your kids. So here is an activity to go with the book. 

Since Easter is round the corner, I managed to grab few plastic eggs.And you need some cardstock and colors.

Print and color the animals and paste them on cardstock for easier use and cut them along the dotted lines. 

Mix them up and add one each of the three portions to each egg. 

Hide the eggs all over your home and let your kid go on an egg hunt. 

Let the kid arrange the pieces and check out what silly animal hatches from the egg. Have guaranteed giggles giving silly names to these silly animals.

For older children, you can add a chit containing adjectives describing Horton and Mayzie and discuss why the adjective fits them.

Have fun!

Lemon Girl

Book Title: Lemon Girl

Author: Jyoti Arora

Genres: Fiction

Rating: 4

'It's all your fault.'Mere words these are. "But words can possess a shadow invincible enough to rob even a soul of its eternity."
In a society that finds it easier to mark sins of a victim than the culprit, Nirvi is a young girl punishing herself for the faults she did not do and avenging her hurts by defeating her own truth.She is scared of her future, and ashamed of her past. She is failing herself, and knows it. She has had a long line of boyfriends, and hated them all. She detests the guy she is living with, runs away from the one she loves , and seduces the one who can never love her. When Arsh first sees Nirvi, she's a free and frank girl in whose eyes sparkle the lemony zest of life. The next time he sees her, she is a voiceless doll draped in clothes that cover her body less and shroud her soul more. And Arsh can't rest till he finds out what made Nirvi give up her own real self.Nirvi knows she is dragging herself on a path from which there can be no recovery. Can her spirit survive the treacherous downfall? Or is the pull of fear and push of desperation just too strong to withstand for a girl who believes she has "nowhere else to go" but down.
"When it's time for you to fall in love, even a lemon can become the cause of it," says Arsh.But can love survive, when even the self love dies?Can love survive when respect is no more?Does true love have the power to revive a dying soul?
Find out in the pages of this brilliantly woven, intense, heart-warming and thought-provoking saga of RISING IN LOVE...

Review

Lemon girl - It is not often that we come across a book title with a cute little reasoning behind the name. If I were to flatter the Author, I would say that this title is something I really liked only next to the Magnum Opus 'Ponniyin Selvan'(a Tamil Historic Fiction written in the 1950s. The culprit behind my reservations against giving 5 star to books I like).

13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck

Book Title: 13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck
Author: Ashwin Sanghi
Genres: Non Fiction
Rating: 4

The journey of life isn’t exactly easy… Some people make it through hard work and talent. Some fall by the wayside. And some people are just plain lucky. They are blessed with Bloody Good Luck!
But is it possible to attract good luck? Can we train ourselves to be lucky? Apparently it seems that Dame Luck isn’t that fickle. She is well within our reach. In his first non-fiction foray, bestselling author Ashwin Sanghi explores that critical, much-longed for element called luck.
Through entertaining and informative anecdotes, narrations of personal experiences and vignettes of homespun wisdom, Ashwin gives us a whole new insight into how people can work towards being lucky.

Review

I have been meaning to read Ashwin Sanghi for a long time but never managed to. So, 13 steps to bloody good luck, the author's first attempt at non-fiction is my first read by him. That said, the writing style doesn't pose itself as a subject for review. It is neither impressive nor dull. The concept is agreeable and makes you think. Basically, the author argues that luck isn't a factor that cannot be controlled. He proposes that one can increase their good luck by changing their Attitude and/or approach towards 13 factors. As with any other self help book, I was excited to find out how much I could agree to the contents and to what extent I can benefit from it.

Matches made in Heaven

Book Title: Matches made in Heaven
Author: Sundari Venkatraman
Genres: Fiction
Rating: 3

A collection of 13 romantic short stories based in India; a culture rich country steeped in tradition. Inspiration struck me from newspaper articles, TV shows and hearing people talk. The short stories are based on that fact that arranged marriages thrive right alongside love matches in India.

Review

Matches made in Heaven, a collection of romantic short stories, would make a blissful read when you are on a flight for a vacation or getting a pedicure done or hmm, u get the drift right? Relaxed and joyful and pampered.  The stories are straightforward, the characters unassuming. All the stories have been based on a spark of thought from real life. The transition from one story to next was quick and easy, given that I read a handful of stories at a time. On a similar note, I wish the Author had avoided repeating the same style of describing the character's appearance and their romantic encounters.