BHOOT, Story of a Boy’s Fear, 2014
Everybody in my family knows the story of when my father was 12 and saw a bhoot.
But there are so many of his stories my children don’t know as they grow up thousands of miles away from their “foreign”grandparents, unable to make easy connections between their lives. Distance, language, and time keeps stories from getting shared. Here is my imagining of my father telling the story of how he saw a ghost when he was 12, to my daughter and her friend, who lives down the street from us.
A Unique Storybook: As you read the story in this unique Handmade Storybook I made from French paper, draw your own illustrations inside and add your name on the cover next to “Illustrated by.” There are no copies of this book as each one is handmade by me and looks different from the next!
A Unique Cover: If you know the word for bhoot in another language, write it on the cover in your own way. I wrote the word BHOOT!—a Hindi/Bengali word from India, using the Roman alphabet, with brush and Chinese ink. Then I cut it all up because sometimes scary things don’t look scary at all if you look at them in smaller pieces. See photos of my author visit for Turning the Page by clicking here.
To order copies for yourself, for a workshop or an author visit please email me!
Sushmita with the open book in her first Studio location in S. Arlington.
Open outside of the book
The books, each one unique and handmade
From a Halloween workshop in her daughter, Ananya's fourth grade class, Sushmita read the story to the kids one day and invited them to make their own "cover art" for it.
The next day she asked students to write how they remembered the story inside. As the book format is divided into the elements of a story it helped children write.
Author Visit for Turning the Page, Garfield Elementary School, Washington DC
Sharing the book at a storytime with Arlington's senior citizens at Walter Reed Community center
Sharing the book at an Arlington Public School summer camp and bookmaking workshop.