Thursday, March 04, 2010

Karadi's new audio-books

Just a little something about Karadi Tales’ beautifully produced “Will You Read with Me?” series of audio-books for children. Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt and Rahul Dravid are among the celebrities who have lent their voices to the series, and going by the books I’ve listened to so far (now there’s an odd phrase!), all of them had a gala time doing the readings. Balan relates the tale of a little lizard who loses his tail and goes about looking for a new one before discovering that there’s really nothing to worry about; Jaaved Jaffri describes the adventures of a “wannabe yogi” named Hathaman, who journeys to Tibet to acquire super-powers. Each book has a cutesy first-person introduction – for example, before starting a story about a cap-seller and monkeys, Sanjay Dutt describes having his cap pulled off his head by a monkey during a shoot. (Of course, this is just as invented as the main story, but it provides a nice personal touch.)

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have contributed a catchy title song for the series, which plays on each CD before the main narrative begins, and there are entertaining background arrangements as each story is told. Best of all, the books are great as print publications too – well worth preserving even if the CD wears out. (The contributing authors include Anushka Ravishankar and Shobha Viswanath, and the illustrations are by Christine Kastl, Malavika P C, Chetan Sharma and others.) If these don’t get your indolent, brain-dead, junk-food-and-video-game-addicted monster child interested in stories and storytelling, nothing will. Nothing!

[Also see these posts about German children’s books and illustrators: 1, 2, 3]

8 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, Jai. It's a beautiful post! :-)

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  2. It's good that we have more Karadi Tales books coming out, but this bit worries me a little : Sanjay Dutt describes having his cap pulled off his head by a monkey during a shoot.

    In a book that's about simple stories for children, do we want all these stars coming in and talking about their films and their life? It's like indoctrinating them with this idea that Bollywood Heroes are the only people worth knowing about.

    I might be overreacting here - You've heard the audiobook, not me - but I had to raise this point.

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  3. Sudarshan: like I mentioned, that's just a very short, one-page Intro; it's the only time the celeb speaks in the first person. Anyway, no one is "talking about their films" or being starry or anything. The Intro for Vidya Balan, for instance, is a little anecdote about her accidentally closing a drawer on a lizard's tale when she was a girl - and that leads us into the story.

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  4. Cool, thanks for the links. How are the books priced?

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  5. Pleasant coincidence! I've been a fan of Karadi rhymes/tales for a few years now. We just returned to India after 6 years in the US and on the very first domestic flight in India, our son was presented with one of these new audio-books. Its called Vinayak and is read by Vidya Balan. We haven't listened to the CD yet but the book is very good. I'm looking to collect the other books in the series!

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  6. @Sudarshan: Jai's response is absolutely perfect. I'd also like to add that Sanjay Dutt, Jaaved Jaaferi, Vidya Balan and others are primarily actors - and that's what makes them such good storytellers! The reason we added the anecdote in the beginning of each story is to personalise the tale. The star factor is not meant to overcome the storyteller factor!

    @Paula: The books are priced at Rs. 145 each. You can pick them up from any bookstore or at our website.

    @rajk: Glad you liked the book. Do listen to the CD as well. We hope you do complete your series collection soon!

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  7. Jai, Karadi_Tales, that's good to know. The earlier books have all been perfect in every way and I'm glad these follow the tradition.

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  8. I've really liked some of these audio books and I think it would be a good idea if they were free. http://www.emusic.com/audiobooks/index.html Has a great section and pays it's artists.

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