Review by Booklist Review
Here the Sehgals (Thread of Love, 2018) offer more than just a traditional alphabet book, matching English letters to items associated with Hindi and Indian culture. Some of the items may be familiar, such as Y is for yoga or C is for chai, which readers might be surprised to learn is the Hindi word for tea. Other pairings will be less recognizable to those outside of the culture, creating an educational opportunity, and linguistic insiders will smile as they recognize yummy falooda (dessert) and juicy aam (mangoes). As the text includes definitions of every subject featured, Ito's colorful illustrations provide clear visuals of the items or concepts described, often incorporating smiling brown faces enjoying their culture. An author's note provides supplemental information about Hindi and other languages, plus an opportunity for readers to practice writing the script. A functional alphabet book (for the littlest readers) that successfully introduces an array of cultural tidbits to the early elementary crowd.--Amina Chaudhri Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1--3--While introducing Indian culture and language, this book gives a brief introduction to Indian crops, holidays, currency, places, and culture with each letter of the alphabet. For example, A is for aam, or mango, the national fruit of India. Some of the explanations of the words are too long and ambiguous, such as J is for jangal (jungle), the basis of the classic The Jungle Book, which was published in 1894. N is for nirvaan, a state of being at peace in which you have no feelings or desires. At the end of the book, an authors' note is helpful to teach children about different languages spoken in India and how the words mentioned in the book are written in Hindi. It would have been helpful to include the pronunciation of those Hindi words to make it easy for the adults who might be unfamiliar with them. For example, the word for L is "ladakee," pronounced lar-ki. M is for "machhalee," pronounced mach-lee. VERDICT Though this book has beautiful illustrations, the text is too challenging and sophisticated for young audiences, yet might be off-putting to older readers.--Noureen Qadir-Jafar, Syosset Library, NY
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