The dabbawallas of Mumbai deliver box lunches — called tiffins — to white collar workers all over the vast city. They are legendary for their near-perfect service: for every six million lunches sent, only one will fail to reach its intended destination. The Tiffin is about that one time in millions when a box goes astray, changing lives forever.

When a note placed in a tiffin is lost, a newborn—Kunal—is separated from his mother. Twelve years later, Kunal lives as a virtual slave under the thumb of his foster father, Seth. With danger and oppression making it impossible to stay where he is, Kunal asks his friend Vinayak, an aging dabbawalla, to help him find his birth mother. Vinayak introduces Kunal to the tiffin carriers, and a plan is hatched. Along the way, Kunal learns what it means to be part of a family.

Mahtab Narsimhan won the Silver Birch Award for her first novel, The Third Eye.  It's sequels, The Silver Birch Anklet and The Deadly Conch,have received critical acclaim.  A native of Bombay (Mumbai), Narsimhan lives in Toronto.

I really enjoyed travelling to Mumbai in this story, and experiencing the sights, smells, and sounds of this populous city. Twelve-year-old Kunal has so little and is willing to face so many hardships and danger, in order to find his mother. I think this is a unique survival story that will captivate junior and intermediate students.

Order The Tiffin from www.tinlids.ca today!

'Great Graphic Wednesday' is a weekly blog posting. Check here every Wednesday for reviews of recommended graphic novels, by members of the Tinlids Graphic Novel Book Club.

Lost and Found Written and Illustrated by Shaun Tan

Details: Hardcover, colour illustrations. ISBN 9780545229241

Grade 6-adult

Summary (from the inside cover): A girl finds a bright spot in a dark world. A boy leads a strange, lost creature home. And a group of peaceful creatures cedes their home to cruel invaders. Shaun Tan, with his understated voice and brilliant draftsmanship, has proved that he has a unique imaginative window to our souls, and an unparalleled ability to share that opening with pictures and narratives that are as unexpected as they are deeply true. Originally published in Australia, these three beloved and acclaimed tales were never widely available in the U.S. Now for the first time, The Red Tree, The Lost Thing, and the John Marsden classic The Rabbits are presented in their entirety with additional new artwork and authors' notes. Together they tell a tale that will leave no reader unmoved, about how we lose and find what matters most to us.

Review: As soon as I picked this book up, my hand started moving up and down the exquisitely designed cover. The title is perfectly placed and the embossed words and illustration just beg to be touched. The image on the cover is the “thing” from The Lost Thing, one of the three stories in this collection. This is the story that Shaun Tan won an Oscar for last week (for Best Short Film Animated). Open the book and you’ll find gorgeous little pencil drawings on the end pages. And of course that’s just the beginning. Shaun Tan is such a genius with words and images. His first sentence “sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to” is accompanied by an illustration of a girl sitting up in bed staring at her bedspread. It’s like looking through a window at first, but then as the illustrations change, you feel like you’re right there with her. This story is about depression and hope, and unexpected things that sometimes seem to happen or appear out of nowhere.

The second story “The Lost Thing” is about this guy who finds this huge thing that seems to be lost. He feels sorry for it, so he takes it home, but eventually he has to take it somewhere else, because his parents don’t want it in their home. I was struck by how much compassion I actually felt for this object – like it was human. More proof of the author’s incredible talent.

The final story “The Rabbits” is about the conflict between two cultures and what happens when one culture takes over. Again the sparse text and powerful illustrations really capture the emotions and allow the reader to make their own connections and conclusions. These three stories contain so many timeless themes: depression, alienation, belonging, peace, culture, political issues, justice, environment and hope. I highly recommend this for grades 6 to adult.

I can’t wait to see what Shaun Tan does next!

Maria Martella is the owner of Tinlids Inc

To order www.tinlids.ca

Lost and Found ISBN 9780545229241

The Arrival ISBN 9780439895293

Tales from Outer Suburbia ISBN 9780771084027

I’ve done hundreds of booktalks for groups of students, teachers and librarians during my bookselling career and I don’t think there has ever been a booktalk that hasn’t included at least one Groundwood title. What I love about this publisher’s books is that they aren’t “market-led”. They don’t publish books written to a formula. I think Patsy Aldana (publisher of Groundwood) makes some very brave and important choices in the books she chooses to publish. Groundwood books represent voices we would not otherwise hear. Isn’t it wonderful that a child living in a trailer in northern Saskatchewan can see themselves in a book (read Laura Croza’s picture book “I Know Here”). This is just one perfect example of the way our children learn about themselves and others.

So, it’s no surprise that on December 30, 2010 Patsy Aldana, publisher of Groundwood books, was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada. She has been such a strong promoter of literacy in Canada as well as internationally (she was also President of The International Board on Books for Young People IBBY).

I’d like to thank Patsy Aldana for providing us with so many amazing choices, and for reminding us about how much there is still to do in ensuring that every child becomes a reader.

Read the Globe and Mail article.

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie said "I did not know that people like me could exist in literature".  What happens when you only know one story about another person or country? 

I watched this video a few days ago, and since then, I've started to notice so many examples of what she is saying.  It's true that there is never a single story about anyone or any place.  When I really pay attention, I can see this every day - in the books I'm reading, in the news, in movies, in art and really just in every connection I make in the world around me.  It's especially obvious to me as I am surrounded every day by great children's literature, and people who care about the stories our children are exposed to.  What an important and inspiring video!