I have celebrated Diwali my entire life and enjoy spending time with my family, eating special foods, and the fireworks. Now that I have a child of my own, I wanted to learn more about the holiday.
Let's Celebrate 5 Days of Diwali! (Maya & Neel's India Adventure Series, Book 1) By Ajanta Chakraborty, Vivek Kumar
As I was thinking about it, a friend posted this book on her Facebook page. It turns out it's by one of the founders of Bollywood Groove, a local dance studio that teaches Indian dance to children and adults. I ordered it immediately! I loved that the book had a note for parents, that explained how in India each home may celebrate differently:
I read it and then asked my mother and mother in law the story of Diwali. For our home, it was the same except for Dhanteras. In the book, they celebrate by buying pots and pans, and in our house we would celebrate by praying to Lakshmi (Laxmi).
Otherwise, we follow the same traditions, with the addition of blessing our businesses on the Diwali (where they pray to Lakshmi, we do it again specifically to bless the businesses for the new year).
I really enjoyed this book, with the simple descriptions of the various rituals and the "Info Zoom" on The Story of Diwali:
One of our students checked it out!
This year Diwali was on October 30th and New Year was on October 31st (it made for a very busy weekend!). I look forward to reading this to Baby T every year and starting our own traditions!
Happy Diwali everyone and Saal Mubarak (Happy New Year).
Chakraborty, Ajanta, and Vivek Kumar. Let's Celebrate 5 Days of Diwali: Maya & Neel's India Adventure Series, Book 1. Chicago, IL: Bollywood Groove, 2016.
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