![]() CLUMSY!T.C.A. Avni CLUMSY! By Ken Spillman and Manjari Chakravarti Year 2016, Rs. 150.00 VOLUME XL NUMBER 11 November 2016 Just as Dennis feels isolated because
he is not understood by others,
Clumsy! is a book about a little girl
with two left feet and all thumbs—food
spills on her clothes, milk tumbles from
her glass, and things just seem to ‘wobble,
tumble and shatter’ around her. She faces
constant reprimands and recriminations,
teasing and scolding, until she begins to
withdraw into herself and all the thoughts she finds herself unable
to voice fill her head, and which express themselves became pictures
and drawings of the world around her. What is truly important is
how the author brings out that while the relationships in themselves
are not intentionally abusive, they end up serving the same purpose—
she feels isolated and frightened, and is unable to respond to
her mother’s gentle queries about what is wrong. She retreats into a
world of her own by getting lost in picture books, using art as her
coping mechanism to deal with a world which is often caustic with
her. The day when her grandmother gives her a painting set proves
to be a turning point, as the ‘colours dance around her’, making her
want to dance with them. She can use the colours of the paints to
express herself just as beautifully as the pictures which she loves to
look at, and in this world she isn’t the clumsy child who can’t catch
the ball or spin without falling or drink the milk without spilling.
What I liked best was how the book ended, with the lines:
She painted all her stories, and wrote her name in the corner. It was the name
that her parents had given her, a name that many seemed to have forgotten.
And it wasn’t Clumsy, Slowcoach, Careless, Sloppy, Messy, Butterfingers…
The book is as important a read for parents as it is for the children
for whom it is written. When dealing with children, especially
if they are being rambunctious, it is easy to forget that the way we
talk to them (or about them) can hurt their feelings. And we may
not realize how the small hurts are piling up until it can become too
late, and the child withdraws into him/her-self. It is important for
children to feel appreciated and loved, and constant insults eats away
at self-confidence, making it harder for children to express themselves
in constructive ways. ... Table of Contents >> |