Historical March 1985 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Only two books in the Kiosk’s juvenile collection have anything at all to do with India, and both are interesting.
For young readers there is Once a Mouse, voted the best picture book of the year in 1962. Written and illustrated by Marcia Brown, it is a retelling of an Indian fable that is a lesson about gratitude and humility.
A hermit with magical powers rescues a little mouse by transforming him into a tiger.
The now arrogant tiger chooses to forget his humble background and brings about his own downfall. Masterful woodcuts in three colors help tell this dramatic story from Indian folklore. Children of the Wolf by Jane Yolen is for the very oldest young readers. Based on a real, though hard-to-believe incident that took place in India in the 1920s, it is the story of two girls who were raised by wolves and brought to an orphanage to become “civilized.” The story is told by fourteen year-old Mohandas, an orphan who played the most sympathetic role in the education of the wolf-girls. Much more like animals than human beings, the girls, could not walk upright.
They scratched, bit, howled, and preferred raw meat to any other kind of food. Pressured by the cruel teasing of the other children and by the strictness of the very religious headmaster, the girls lived in constant terror.
Even the patience and devotion of Mohandas could not save them from an inevitable fate.
This is a fascinating story filled with emotion and psychological tension.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1985.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1985_03.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
