THE CHURKI-BURKI BOOK OF RHYME

In a Central Indian village, Churki and Burki, two young sisters, help their parents and play near their house. The girls enjoy their traditional life. From the time they wake up in the morning until they fall asleep at night, the sisters make up rhymes to go with each activity, from playing on a homemade see-saw—“…Tadak-tadak / Kukurukoo / Tadak-tadak, / I want to play too!”—to thinking about all the food items in their dinner: fish, corn, beans, pumpkin and rice. Although the rhymes are not from traditional sources, the animal sounds and nonsense syllables may be from this area and will easily be picked up and repeated by North American children. Some of the rhymes don’t scan as well as others, but the prose and poetry work together to give an accessible description of village life. Bai uses her characteristic natural colors and intriguing Gond regional style, filling her pictures with cross-hatching and designs on creamy ecru paper, that she also employed in the wonderful The Old Animals’ Forest Band, by Sirish Rao (2008). An intriguing and refreshing look at a faraway place. (Picture book. 4-7)