New DVD's at Warren
15 years ago
Friday, June 29, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Storytime and "Behind the beautiful forevers''
Storytime
Come to the Library this Thursday, 28th June
at 10.30am to join in our monthly Storytime.
We’ll be reading a picture book classic; ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle, making some lovely butterflies and caterpillars and generally
having fun. Storytime is for babies,
toddlers, under-5’s and their carers, and is free of charge.
Visit Countdown to the Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! to see a video of Eric Carle talking about this wonderful book. You can also download Very Hungry Caterpillar wallpaper and a screensaver. We love this story, as do people the world over. It even earned its own Google doodle!
New
book
‘Behind the
beautiful forevers’ by Katherine Boo is a new arrival at our Library. From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, this is a landmark work of
narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic story of families striving toward
a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities. This well
written, fast-paced book, based on three years of reporting, makes the impact
of our age of global change human.
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”
But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget. It was reviewed by Shashi Faroor of the Washington Post on 11 February, 2012, and here is part of what she had to say:
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”
But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget. It was reviewed by Shashi Faroor of the Washington Post on 11 February, 2012, and here is part of what she had to say:
“This is an astonishing book. It is astonishing on several levels: as a worm’s-eye view of the “undercity” of one of the world’s largest metropolises; as an intensely reported, deeply felt account of the lives, hopes and fears of people traditionally excluded from literate narratives; as a story that truly hasn’t been told before, at least not about India and not by a foreigner. But most of all, it is astonishing that it exists at all.”
To see what other books the Library has, come in and browse our shelves, or visit our website at http://www.northwesternlibrary.com.au . We wish you good reading!
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