Celebrating Diwali (The Festival of Lights)
Celebrate Diwali with these gorgeous picture book recommendations.
THE DIWALI GIFT BY SHWETA CHOPRA AND SHUCHI MEHTA
LET'S CELEBRATE DIWALI BY ANJALI JOSHE
Simple, but sweet, a glorious picture book that embraces all of the different ways of celebrating diwali, including the Hindu, Sikh and Jain traditions. There's always a reason to celebrate Diwali!
One of the few books that celebrates the birth of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth mapping her power from monsoon season to winter. With short, sharp sentences and clear-cut illustrations, the book's perfect for young children aged 3–5.
RAMAYANA: DIVINE LOOPHOLE BY SANJAY PATEL
With the magic of Disney and Pixar creations under his belt, Sanjay Patel's Ramayana (one of the epics of Hindu mythology) series includes a picture book on Diwali. In this book, Sanjay recreates Lord Rama’s return from exile after successfully winning that battle with Demon King Ravana. Stunning illustrations and smart story-telling that capture almost 24,000 verses into a succinct picture book.
A big hello and thank you for reading! Passionate about literature, psychology, and life I launched Book Therapy as an alternative form of therapy using the power of literature. I train mental health professionals, librarians, teachers as well as readers on using bibliotherapy in their own work through our online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course. We also curate reading lists/personalised book prescriptions for clients based on their individual needs. This is our signature personalised reading service.
You can also check out Book Therapy’s other free reading lists and A- Z of book prescriptions (covering both fiction and non-fiction). These suggest books based on your existing life situation (e.g. anxiety, job change, relationship heartache) as well as interests (e.g memoir, historical fiction, non-fiction, crime etc). There’s also a Children’s A — Z of Book Prescriptions. Feel free to check out the blog for more literary gems. There’s also a post on my personal story of how I entered the world of bibliotherapy and book curation.
In this role, I have had the opportunity to publish a book called The Happiness Mindset, and write various literary essays and pieces for newspapers and magazines. I have undertaken bibliotherapy workshops for The United Nations, various libraries in New York and corporate organisations in the UK and US. My book recommendations have featured in the Guardian, Marie Claire, NBC News, Asian Voice, New York Observer, Sydney Telegraph and various other publications. If you are a parent you might enjoy a podcast I’ve recorded with speech and language therapist Sunita Shah on Raising A Reader & Storyteller. And if you’d like to connect, email me at bijal@booktherapy.io or www.booktherapy.io.
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