Storytellers is the closest kids can get to a six pack. Each volume, in a colourful cardboard box, comes with five storybooks and a VCD.
Storytellers is a product of an association between local publishers Orient Longman and Bookbox, an American company which has sourced stories from around the world. This means the stories are not the hackneyed ones served out to children over the generations.
When one takes up Turtle’s Flute, one may think of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. The premise is the same — the cheated turning the tables on the cheater. In the more famous story, the piper was refused his booty after being made to do a job. Here it is a happy-go-lucky turtle that falls victim to a man who capitalises on his gullibility.
The Pied Piper story carries an element of dread for young readers, as it is children who become pawns in the piper’s counter move, being led away from home and confined in the far mountains. Here, children are the agents of the turtle’s deliverance.
Tucket the Bucket reminds one of the autobiographies of objects that the English teacher asked one to write in junior school. Thankfully, this one has a happy ending.
And any child reading Symbiosis will never forget the meaning of the word, ending as the story does with the zebra thanking birds for pecking fleas off his coat and the birds thanking the zebra in turn for providing them a good meal.
The Elves and the Shoemaker tells a heart-warming story of a poor shoemaker turning around with help from elves who secretly crafted shoes for him. But it also teaches a great moral of reciprocating a favour when the shoemaker makes them dresses for Christmas, thereby releasing them from the bond of labour.
One could go on about the stories but the USP of the product is the VCD. It carries animated versions of the stories in the five books. While a narrator reads aloud the story, his words appear as subtitles too.
The read-along method helps a child relate phonetic sounds with visual subtitles, thereby accelerating the development of his reading skills.
The CD has other interactive parts, too — puzzles like Join The Dots and Sort The Jumbled Pieces, for instance. One can also take printouts of outlined pictures for colouring.
SUDESHNA BANERJEE
Storytellers 1 & 2 Launch
The first two sets of books in the series was launched in Mumbai with much fanfare by the acknowledged master of storytelling, actor/director Aamir Khan, on 1 March 2008 and in Kolkata by legendary singer Usha Uthup, on 29 April 2008.
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