Book review - Dev and Ollie Colour Carnival

Dev and Ollie - Colour Carnival (affiliate link) is a new picture book by Shweta Aggarwal that aims to teach children a little more about the diverse global society that we live in. It's part of a series which covers festivals celebrated by different cultures around the world, and this, the second book in the series, teaches children about the famous Hindu festival of colour - Holi.

Raising mixed-race children, I'm obviously keen for them to learn about their heritage, and at their age the obvious place to start is with festivals and celebrations. Holi is a fun festival which marks the triumph of good over evil, and the start of the spring season. All over India and across the globe, Hindus mark the holy day with bonfires on the festival's eve and by throwing brightly coloured powder paints and coloured water at each other during the day.

The story follows Dev, who isn't a fan of messy play and hates getting dirty. After his Mum tucks him up in bed one night, his magical bedtime owl Ollie takes him to Agra, where a group of children are dancing, singing, and throwing water balloons filled with paint. At first Dev is angry, but he can't stop himself joining in and soon he's having a great time before he has to return home, having forgotten all his worries about getting paint on him.

It's a lovely story, and although aimed at little ones there are still plenty of references to the important parts of the festival which were new to me and which I'll certainly be learning more about to pass on to the children. There are more books for the series planned which will introduce children to more festivals around the globe, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for them!

I was sent a copy of this book to review, Amazon link is affiliate.