Parenting

By Meena Vathyam

When I was a young reader growing up in India, I cherished my collection of Famous Five books by Enid Blyton and followed Asterix and Tintin comics with delight. Chandamama and Target magazines came in a poor third place among my favorite reads. I began to enjoy Amar Chtra Katha comics as I grew older and began to understand moral concepts of good and evil.

But as an immigrant parent, I have a growing concern for the lack of quality books that expose our children to the nuances of Indian culture while enriching their minds. Much of the available South Asian material is inappropriate for young children, because gore and mind-numbing violence rule supreme in comics and books. And the sad fact is that there is little effort made by publishers to label books for grade and age levels. We as parents have very few options for South Asian-themed books to share with our children. Perhaps because of this, we parents are often guilty of ignoring South Asian books in favor of ones that focus exclusively on American culture. Other parents purchase books of inferior quality in India and Pakistan and foist these stories on their children, even though the stories hold little appeal or meaning or are beyond our children’s comprehension levels.

As a parent, I would prefer to have books that could introduce my children to the delightful tales of Panchatantra or Akbar and Birbal. The books that are widely available are far too violent for young readers and need to be toned down—drastically! Parents can share these stories with their young children by adapting these tales to contemporary settings and using appropriate, child-friendly language when relating the tales. While we can resort to clever storytelling for younger children, this becomes less practical as our children grow older and we encourage them to read on their own.

While there are plenty of South Asian websites that offer child-friendly material, there have only recently been attempts by writers to fill the void of South Asian children’s literature. These writers include MeeraMasi creators Sonali Herrera and Sheetal Singhal. With its eloquent tagline “Creating Curiousity”, MeeraMasi offers the Jay and Juhi series, stories about an adventurous South Asian brother-and-sister duo whose adventures include learning about Rajasthan with a little help of a magical Kathputhli (puppet). They end up in New Delhi to learn about the Indian national bird, the peacock.

MeeraMasi hopes to address the absence of literature for children between six months and eight years of age by becoming a creative and publishing source so authors, illustrators and musicians can exhibit their ideas and provide South Asian kids fun and memorable stories and characters who capture their imaginations.

Jay and Juhi stories have been kid-tested and any ideas that haven't appealed to the target audience have been shelved. Herrera says that MeeraMasi's goal is to make Jay and Juhi “cool” and personable, using simple and easy-to-retain story techniques for young readers. At the end of each book, the Jay and Juhi series includes reading comprehension sections, fun facts and DIY crafts, such as making puppets to enhance children’s reading experiences.

So has the enterprise been successful? Recognition has come from unexpected quarters, says Herrera. The Santa Clara School District uses the Jay and Juhi series to teach cultural identity and bases some of their lesson plans on these books. Herrera suggests that for any South Asian children’s books to become really successful, parents themselves need to take the literature seriously and promote an environment where cultural ideas and attitudes are accepted with open minds as a way of connecting with rich South Asian cultural heritage. If parents show just as much excitement toward a South Asian-themed children’s book as they do toward a Dr. Seuss book, then South Asian children’s literature and publishers have a chance of survival.

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