About this deal
Melody Razak felt inspired to write Moth after listening to a Radio 4 programme called ‘Partition Voices’. The emotion of the speakers caught her unexpectedly and she felt very much compelled to do further research. She explored in more depth the history of India’s partition and the scale of the brutality inflicted on all sides, focussing in particular on the women. Melody Razak took her research very seriously travelling to India and living there for a year while writing Moth
Field guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland. Paul Waring & Martin Townsend, 2009. Illustrations of all macro-moths in natural resting postures plus detailed field notes. British Wildlife Publishing. The first collection from celebrated storytelling phenomenon The Moth presents fifty spellbinding, soul-bearing stories selected from their extensive archive. Before becoming a writer, Razak was a pastry chef and cake shop owner, and India’s culinary riches flavour her prose just so. Dilchain the cook, for instance – a woman who carries her own trauma and keeps a jar filled with unrequited love – spoils the family with kulfi and jelabis. “Knead until your face is pink and hot,” she tells Alma, teaching her to make paratha dough. “When you can’t breathe, then you know it’s ready.”
Need help with ID?
This is an excellent volume, and will justly be consulted alongside moth guides relying on artwork or set specimens to assist the ever increasing number of moth enthusiasts in identifying their catches." She is a talented writer but this book is not for me, though I know I will think about this novel quite often. I think having read it and understood the gravity of the events that took place during this period, I can't help but be grateful to Razak for illuminating and explicitly showing the horrors that the people in this part of the world, specifically the women, had to endure. I can appreciate and validate that I know that this author has done extensive research into this topic, which from what I can tell would not be easy, but has many stories still to tell. Alma is 14 and anticipating her wedding. Although her parents are educated, her father progressive and her mother operating with a degree of autonomy, married is the safest place in a land where females who are raped kill themselves to maintain familial honor. And it is nearly impossible to not be raped. I'd previously heard 14 of the 50 stories on the audio podcast so skipped those. The ones I did read, I could tell they were originally spoken: plenty of sentences begin with "And", I don't think much would've been lost if these transitions had been eliminated in the editing.
MissHallreads asked I asked her year 6 class to present the facts from Moth in any way they wished. One of her EAL pupils created this absolutely stunning poem Wiener, Ann Elizabeth (2018). "What's That Smell You're Reading?". Distillations. 4 (1): 36–39 . Retrieved July 11, 2018. Devastating, heartbreaking and a hard read this was. The violence between humans, especially towards the weaks, the appaling misogynistic views on women with their housewives duties, the disgusting act of child marriages that was so prominent, the unfairness of caste system, there are so many themes that were so hard to discussed yet this book brought all of this to the light. All i can say this was such a difficult to read for how graphic some of the scenes are, for how it gets me to actually look at this and see how horrible they are.
About the contributors
When Partition happens and the British Raj is fractured overnight, this wonderful family is violently torn apart, and its members are forced to find increasingly desperate ways to survive. The first edition of this popular photographic guide was published in 2008 as British Moths and Butterflies. The second edition represents a significant revision, and has much new material to offer. A huge welcome to everyone taking part in the Great Science Share for Schools! Here are some ideas and resources for exploring the wonderful world of moths in your classroom over the coming weeks: Cogan Primary ran their own Biodiversity Picture Book Award #GwobrLlyfrLluniauBioamrwyiaethCogan2020 for picture books which show concern for and celebrate our environment. I was so happy that Moth got nominated by the pupils!