Book Review: Books with lessons of life
G N Shakir
Emilie Poulsson has rightly said “Books are keys to wisdom’s treasure;
Books are gates to lands of pleasure;
Books are paths that upward lead;
Books are friends. Come, let us read.”
Undoubtedly books are key to infinite wisdom as they are written by men and women of deep knowledge gained from a long experience. Books give us knowledge, wisdom, vocabulary enrichment, ideas collection, familiarization with different types of writing formats, speaking fluency, imagination, intuition, reasoning skills, etc.
However, for quite a long time now, books prescribed in private schools have become points of criticism and sometimes points of hot discussions. Earlier the discussions would happen on shops, on relaxing places or even in print media and nowadays social media pages are filled with such arguments and counter arguments.
The argument that private schools compel their students to purchase books from their school stalls or book stores of their choice may be true. This can also be a fact that (not all but some) books are not scrutinized in terms of content before using in class rooms. That is why books prescribed by private schools become points of criticism many a times. To me, there can be two reasons; one that most of the books prescribed by schools are from publishers of other states and the content differs from local ethos, local culture and broadly speaking, a local touch. Another reason can be that many school owners do not bother to check the contents published in the books before selling them to their students.
Now if you have standard books written by authors having mastery on the subjects, with genuine content, presentable, attractive for kids and from local publishers, isn’t that a good thing to be followed, propagated and encouraged by private schools?
And this has been made possible by some local publishers who have now come up with some quality publications and standard books for schools. Paradise Publication House Srinagar is one such publishing house which is purely an educational publishing company and is in the field for last many decades.
Right now the publishing house has come up with three interesting series on General Knowledge, Cursive Writing and Art. All the three series are strictly designed, printed and published on high quality paper with attractive get up and child friendly illustrations.
“Meet the Global Knowledge (GK 360˚)” is a series of general knowledge books for classes 1 to 8.The series has been prepared on the basis of New Education Policy (NEP2020).It has been authored by F A Hafiz, a renowned educationist of J&K and compiled by Raze Graphix Team.
The contents are genuine, meaningful and intellectually compiled with catchy headings. All the lessons are organized logically under units and every lesson offers interesting advices for readers. The lessons have been supplemented with Help Boxes which help students solve the problems related to the activities.
Assignments have been given at the end that helps scale the real progress of students in terms of understanding the lessons. An interesting feature of the books is that pages regarding life skills and solutions to daily life problems have been included. In short, the series of books offers extra information to students and teachers beyond the scope of lessons.
“Kidcore” is a book on art and craft, published by Paradise Publication House. This is a series of eight books for classes Nursery to Grade 5. Each book of this series has well graded activities supplemented with visual ideas. Printed on beautiful glazed paper with attractive illustrations and a very presentable title page, each book of this series has something new to offer to the teachers and the kids. The series is so designed that it can help students develop creativity and at the same time it can build self esteem in the students.
One more series published by the publishing house is a series based on Cursive Writing. The series is titled “Let’s go with Doodling Hands”. The series has been designed for students of introductory classes and from Grade I to Grade VII. Interesting thing about the books is that the first two pages of the books contain important instructions for teachers. These instructions help the teachers in arranging their writing class. It gives advice regarding the sitting position of a child while writing, holding of a pencil properly and tips on neat and legible handwriting.
The books are simple, easy to understand for children and have specially been designed for young learners of handwriting. The series is aimed to be a good companion for both teachers and students. The books contain introduction to correct strokes of pencil, proper spacing and knowledge of four lines.
It contains basic knowledge of handwriting rules, joining of alphabets to create words, joining words to form sentences, vocabulary, word building, grammar facts, language based games and activities. The books are visually attractive and have best layout design and illustrations.
More important is that the series of books is completely indigenous with essential local touch of culture, heritage and ethos. The series is cost effective, helpful for all schools and worth reading. If incorporated in the school system, the series of books under review can serve the best possible purpose of knowledge, life skills and well oriented guidance of the new generation.
KV Network
