Step Into Reading Chapter Books with Duckbill's hOle Book Series !

While we are following #SocialDistancing and #StayingHome; I am able to build Ms. A's 'Reading Skills'. My current target is to transit her from 'Picture Books' to 'Chapter Books' and at the same time ensuring that her interest in reading stays intact. Since, some children loose interest while graduating to 'Chapter Books' for possible reasons like:

• no supporting pictures for text.
• text is little serious and not enough fun elements to engage with.
• sometimes children cannot relate well or draw connections.

Fortunately, I had come across this Duckbill's hOle book series while we were in India and I promptly purchased the complete series along with some others. While, we made our move to Tokyo; all I brought along were 'BOOKS & BOOKS' which I felt would be needed in due course of time for Ms. A. 

Our hOle book series collection

So, now we are opening our 'Books Pitara' one by one and exploring. From, this series the first book which Ms. A chose to read was Susie Will Not Speak. The reason she gave for her choice was that the title was very captivating and she wanted to find out why Susie did not want to speak.    

Susie Will Not Speak by Shruthi Rao

So, once Ms. A started reading she just got hooked onto the book. She loved the hOle on the right side top corner of the book and said it's so much fun. She felt super empathetic towards Susie as she lisped and hated all the people who made fun of her. In particular she disliked 'Diya's Father' who teased Susie and asked her "Hey Thuthie, want thome thamothath and chill thauthe?"

She loved Jahan (Susie's Best Friend) who stood by her always and tried best in his capacity to help Susie. However, as the story progressed Susie chose not to speak and rather started to communicate either with her body language or by writing. 'Ms. A' then went ahead and drew connections from the story to her learning in school. During one of the units in school she had explored 'Signs & Symbols'. She promptly said that Jahan is using Signs & Symbols to communicate with Susie.

Further, I would not like to spill the beans and share for how long Susie did not speak and how Jahan helped her. Did Jahan succeed in convincing Susie to speak? I leave this here and why don't you get yourself a copy of this book and find out.

I am also sharing here the BOOK REVIEW done by Ms. A. 

Please ignore the spell errors, she is in her learning phase and making best possible attempt to string the words correctly. However, for you ease of understanding I am putting together her review here.

Susie will not speak / Shruthi Rao

I read this book on 25th of March.

The thing I liked most about the book is, that it shows how a child would face difficulties and take actions and how people made fun of them. But, they fought back. The book mentioned about emojis and was related to my school's unit.

Shruthi Rao, I would want everyone to give a round of applause and cheers for you. I recommend this book from my heart to all the children to read and they will like it.

Thus, I personally felt the characters and the illustrations in the book were so relatable to a young mind and very simple to comprehend. The text in each chapter was very apt in terms of a young readers ability. Therefore, not only this specific title but I highly recommend the complete series for your child in case she/he is transiting from PICTURE BOOKS to CHAPTER BOOKS. It's very rare to find such wonderful books written & illustrated in Indian context.