The loud clap of thunder - Gadaam! Gudoom!
The flash of lightning - Zzak! Zzak!
The falling rain – Sittasitta! Pittapitta!
The trees sway – Shay! Shay!
With sound effects like that which child is going to be able to resist this utterly delightful little story of Sunu Sunu the Snail, as she experiences her very first storm?
Vividly narrated with few simple, yet effective words, this picture book is bound to capture little hearts.
Ashok Rajagoplan’s soft and gentle colours and uncluttered illustrations add to the magic of a very rainy day in a garden in which live Sunu Sunu the Snail, and her ant friends.
There is a lot of learning in this book. Parents and teachers can talk to the kids about storms, snails and also how little creatures manage to survive a downpour.
A classic tale that has the potential to be an all time favourite!
This book is also available in: Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam, Kannada
Comments
One of my best picture books
Sunu-sunu was written by Sandhya Rao as a story to be read aloud at story-reading sessions for very young people. She wanted the reader and listeners to have fun with all those sounds, and probably had lots of fun writing them, in the first place. I wrote Gajapati Kulapati for the same session, I remember, though it was published only last year.
For these pictures, I experimented with a heavily stylish composition: one picture will have a 'circular' composition, another a triangular...
And you will notice a lot of rhythm in the illustrations to suit the text. I had also hidden some visual jokes in the background. Look for a Mom ant and brat in the 'ant' pages; the brat slides down the snail's shell, begs his Mom for 'one more time,' and clutches her legs when frightened.
I used watercolours and pencils for this book - watercolours for ambience and pencils for sharp details.
I hoped readers would return to the pictures after the story is done to discover a new detail in the background. Sunu-sunu was a fun story to illustrate!