"Mother Goose Goes to India" by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal, illustrated by Wazza Pink (Beach Lane Books, Jan. 4), preschool to third grade, 32 pages, $17.99 hardcover, $10.99 ebook.
Fifteen nursery rhymes familiar to English-speaking adults everywhere undergo a colorful transformation in this charming picture book that introduces a new cast of characters with names and words taken from Hindi.
In addition to pat-a-cake, children can play pat-a-naan:
"Pat-a-naan, pat-a-naan, baker's man.
"Bake me a naan as fast as you can."
We can wish upon a taara light, taara bright as well as the first star we see tonight. And instead of a king, a raja can't put Humpty-Dumpty together again.
Here and there the sing-song patter stumbles under translation, but for the most part things fit.
The rhythm and cadences of Mother Goose rhymes are known around the globe. Surishtha Sehgal learned them as a child in India; and decades later in the United States as the mother of two children, she read the same poems to them. Twisting them a bit to add bilingual flavor feels natural.
Those of us who relish Indian food and are delighted to see women in flowing, jewel-toned saris at Arkansas shopping centers will agree. Sharing this little book with kids is another way of broadening their understanding of all the cultures that have come together to make the United States a deliciously bubbling melting pot.
Adults, too, can pick up some fresh thoughts — for instance, that "das" might rhyme with "fuss" and that a "guy" could be a cow.
Directly below each verse in smaller type are translations of the substitute words and a simple pronunciation guide, so we don't have to flip from the front of the book to the back while struggling to remember what was said in some appendix. We merely need to have our reading glasses handy.
Read to Me is a weekly review of short books.