Jessica Souhami
Frances Lincoln
Age 3-7 years

This is a bold and beautifully illustrated traditional Hindu tale of Rama and Sita whose bravery and goodness triumphs over a jealous stepmother and the vengeful ten-headed Ravana, King of all the Demons. With help from Hanuman, leader of the monkey army, Rama and his loyal brother Lakshaman escape from the forest, defeat Ravana, free Sita and together return to India. After learning of his father’s death, Rama is made King and rules wisely and well.

The suspense in the story is highlighted by the use of paper cut-outs, dramatising the action like colourful puppets on the page.

Share the story

Read aloud
Read the story aloud, taking time to talk together about the pictures as you do.

Things to talk about
Take time to look and talk about the cover. What does your child notice? What kind of story might it be?

As you read the book allow time to pause for your child to predict what might happen next, before turning the page.

Talk together when your child wants to discuss anything they notice, ask a question or wonder about the story, characters, illustrations or layout.

After finishing the book, share favourite parts of the story and favourite illustrations and talk about why you chose them.

Talk about any morals or lessons from the story.

What would your child tell someone else about this book? 

Things to make and do

Make a stick puppet
Make a stick puppet by using coloured card and either a pencil, paintbrush or wooden spoon. Use it to retell the story, perhaps from the chosen character’s point of view. See here for ideas. 

Make a bridge
Make a bridge for Rama and Hanuman to cross the sea to rescue Sita, using cardboard tubes and egg boxes, sticky tape and glue. Balance increasingly heavy objects on it to test its strength.

Find out more

Find India and Sri Lanka on the world map

Read other books by  author/illustrator Jessica Souhami, titles include:

In the Dark, Dark Wood

Leopard’s Drum

No Dinner!

King Pom

Foxy!

Sausages

Incey Winceys Preschool sets a reading challenge for families

Mick Kingswell, preschool manager at Incey Winceys Preschool in North East London is working hard to encourage parents to share books at home and it is great to hear they are making really good use of the resources on www.lovemybooks.co.uk.

Mick told us about a 10,000 hour fund raising reading challenge they held in July. At the launch meeting they told parents about Lovemybooks, put up posters, gave out postcards and encouraged parents to spend time looking at the website.

We asked Mick how the challenge went:

‘We successfully reached our 10,000 minute reading goal we finally managed 10,211 minutes in total. Our charity target was £300 but to my surprise we made £545 for our local children’s centre and Salvation Army and will enable us to give out 100 or so high quality books to disadvantaged children in the local community.’

He said some parents found the reading challenge tough and not everyone got involved, some gave up after day one. The experience of sharing books on a daily basis was new to a number of parents some of whom admitted giving their child time on an iPad in lieu of a quality story time. However there were some big successes:

‘One or two parents said that they felt closer to their children. One dad mentioned how good it was for him to bond with his child. We see this as a huge success.’

‘The children responded well and were excited to read every day and were keen to tell me how many books they read the day before! One child said “my mummy forgot” and then this mum read twice as many stories that night! We could see obvious improvements in communication, concentration and vocabulary.’

A few parents made comments about Lovemybooks:

“I found the Lovemybooks website to be full of fun activities. We almost forgot to read sometimes because we got caught doing other things and had so much fun. We will check back for new books”.

“We used the website you gave us to look at what books to buy. Some of Jack’s books were too long, which put us off reading”.

Incey Winceys are finding the website useful in their setting as well. Mick told us:

‘We tend to look on Lovemybooks for ideas for activities or games. When we were looking at emotions we read Grumpy Frog , We used the ideas on the website to make frog puppets and used them in emotion role play.  With Elmer  where you suggested creating colourful elephants we went a bit mad and made a giant elephant together!’

‘We have bookmarked the site on the children’s iPads. We use the video links to watch a story at nap time. This has a calming effect and helps children especially those with SEN with their routine.

‘We also use the site for looking at books we don’t have, or for finding age appropriate books and use the ideas on the site to convince the finance people to buy the books we would like.’

Teachers and school leaders – Are you sharing www.lovemybooks.co.uk with parents in your school or setting too? Do let us know if so, we’d love to hear and share your experiences in our newsletters too. Email info@lovemybooks.co.uk.