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Book Review
Peacock’s Dress: a look at the child’s world
Title: Monarage Enduma (Peacock’s
Dress)
Author: Ruwan Tharaswin
Translators: Arul Sathiyanathan (Tamil)
Sachitra Mahendra (English)
“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been
ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them
openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the
fear of childishness and the desire to be very grownup.”
- C. S. Lewis (1952)
Writing for children has never been easy. Only a few writers dare
experiment on juvenile literature. That was how it used to be. But now
the bookshops have been invaded by a good number of children’s books.
 An author has to be extra careful when compiling a children’s book.
Even more than an adult’s work, there is a lot more to think about in
compiling a children’s book. They mainly include grammar, punctuation
and the moral lesson. What a child learns initially is what influences
him as an adult.
Most children’s books have no assurance whether the authors have got
their basics right. Most children’s authors don’t seem to have a proper
command of language. It is essential for a children’s author to have a
good command of language. Not to write eloquently, but to write simply
an author must know how to maintain the language accordingly.
Overall children’s books have held up very well in the market,
according to world statistics on book sales. Booksellers have seen an 11
percent increase in hardcover sales in 2009 over 2008. However, some
changes and developments have brought about new challenges. School and
library budgets are getting slashed. Digital book sales are increasing.
Books are being sold in new arenas such as Amazon.com, Walmart and
Target.
Writing for children in the 21st century is wide open. The writer is
not limited to talking ducks or Jane and Dick watching Spot run. In
fact, using those formats are probably ways to assure that you will not
get published. This generation is exposed to much more than we were.
While we may have been reading The Diary of Anne Frank in tenth grade,
they are now reading it in seventh! Classics such as Little Women,
intrigue the third grader instead of a sixth grader. Times are rapidly
changing!
And publishing houses want to be ahead of the times.
The books of our youth generally consisted of a moral or learning a
value at the end of the story. Now, it is more crucial that your
characters are believable and the story from the child’s viewpoint.
Remember, you, as the author, and the publishing house are competing
with video games, television shows, computers and movies. Books and
articles today must entertain the reader. Lessons are acceptable if they
are indirect instead of moralizing. Classics are not classics because of
their moral; they are classics because of their characters and theme.
Favoring realism instead of ‘happily ever after’, books and articles
allow children an opportunity to understand and cope with what they are
being exposed to in their own lives and through the entertainment
industry. No more suburban two-parent families in white picket fenced
houses. Topics such as death, illness, divorce, rape, moving, incest,
step-families and substance abuse are just a few of the topics to which
today’s children are exposed. There seems to be no ‘taboo’ topic
anymore.
Publishing houses need hopeful and truthful ways children can deal
with these issues. Besides realistic topics, publishers also seek
simple, “how-to” books for children age eight through mid-teens.
Cooking, crafting and decorating as well as hobbies are being
considered.
Ruwan Tharaswin is no stranger to the Sri Lankan newspaper reader.
His cartoons and paintings have been adorning the papers for quite some
time. Most of his paintings have won international acclaim as well.
His latest endeavour was to try out children’s books. He had a
challenge before him: to write, apart from painting. This, he has
accomplished effortlessly. He has published three children’s books:
Ashva Bittaraya (Horse Egg), Nariyata Padamak (A Lesson for the Fox) and
Monarage Enduma (Peacock’s Dress).
His first book was in only two languages, but Tharaswin seems to have
switched into three languages in the later works. This is timely as the
country is being geared towards a tri-language policy.
A word must be mentioned about the Tamil translation too. Arul, a
veteran Tamil writer as well as translator, has done justice to the
original script. Tharaswin has used a simple eloquent style. This will
be a welcome variant to promote Sinhala folktales among local Tamil
readers as well.
Peacock’s Dress is a story every child must learn, as it conveys a
grim reality of broken promises. It points a finger at the adult society
as well.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 children’s books are published each year.
Unfortunately, the chance of getting through to an editor on your own
nowadays is next to impossible. Most such works are therefore full of
proof errors. Tharaswin, quite luckily, has escaped that grim situation.
His book is a nicely finished easy to read material. Every home must
possess such a book.
- Neal Weerapperuma
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