Every once in a while, you come across a story that is different. It makes you think and challenges your assumptions. One such story is ‘Drum Dream Girl’. Written by Margarita Engle, its stunning illustrations by Rafael Lopez take you on a journey to Cuba.
Cuba; where there is music in everyone’s life, where only boys were allowed to play the drums. Then came a brave girl, who questioned these notions and took the road less traveled.
To open up this story to our children in the Libraries in School program, we first started with a drama charades game. The children enjoyed enacting and guessing the musical instruments. To give them an idea of the setting of the story, we looked at a world map to find Cuba, and how far it is from India. Discussion about the cover illustration slowly pulled the children into the story. They were enchanted by the book’s vibrant colors and one picture that stayed with many of them was the one of a winged drum in a cage.
Maumita from standard 4, so succinctly told what she understood from this powerful image- the Drum Dream girl’s hopes are dashed when her father comes to know about her secret passion. They listened intently to the non-fiction note about Millo Castro, the Drum Dream Girl, and how she rose in her talent to even play for a U S president.
This story led to a rich discussion and it was nice to see the boys and girls so vocal about it. The girls spoke about the things they are not allowed to do and what only boys can do, like going to parties, coming home late, going out with boys. Maumita said that earlier girls were not allowed to wrestle but now they can. Shree observed that now in Goa the number of girls is becoming less and in their class itself the boys outnumber the girls. She also said that if parents find out that the child is going to be a girl, they kill it and if the girl is born and they don’t want her, then they put the baby in hot water.
In another class, we had a different type of discussion. Here, the children agreed that there must be one rule for both boys and girls and they should be allowed to do everything. When asked about entry in temples for only boys, most of the girls said that it is wrong and wanted to know why girls were not allowed. The boys were not saying much, but there were some who agreed with the girls. I also asked what they thought about stay-at-home dads. For this many boys said that it is not a good idea and they would not do it, however Ganesh said that he would not mind it. The girls were mostly fine with this idea.
This book made me realize how aware and observant children are. They are very receptive to complex ideas, and what other way to do this than through a beautiful story. Such stories make children think about things that are happening around them and open up dialogue in the classroom.