Celebrating Holi: A Hindu Celebration of Spring

We Love Holidays

by Sujatha Menon

Introduces this Hindu holiday, discussing when it takes place, its history and significance, preparations, how it is celebrated, and the foods that are eaten on it.

Genres: Nonfiction

24 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[BiblioBeruthiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this included pronunciations for some of the words.

[Ala Abdallah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explains the Hindu celebration called "Holi". It is done on the day where a full moon occurs in March in order to celebrate the first day of Spring. It explains how people celebrate it such as throwing colored powder at each other and by having festivals in the streets. It celebrates the defeat of evil by good. Hindu legend states that an evil king wanted everyone to worship him as God. His son didn't believe he was the real God so he disobeyed him. The king then told his daughter to go kill her brother, but God killed her and saved the son. Ever since then, Hindu adults and children around the world celebrate this holiday. They last from two days to two weeks depending on what are of the world they are. This book zooms in on one Hindu holiday which is great from classroom use because children will enjoy the meaning behind it as well as the photographs of people with colored powder all over them!

[Elizabeth]

Of the 6 books in KitaabWorld's "Top Picks for Holi," my local library network only had one, so I went through the "Holī (Hindu festival) -- Juvenile literature." tag and got 4 additional books by authors whose names sounded like they were of Indian ancestry.

This "We Do Holidays" book is a much quicker read than the "A World of Holidays" book.

I liked the asides about celebrations in various places outside of India, like "Did you know? In some countries, such as Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago, people burn a castor oil plan instead of lighting bonfires." The "A World of Holidays" book has a section on "Outside of India," but it only talked about celebrations in colder climates and in Nepal (where Holi lasts an entire week).

I also appreciated that it included a photo of kids in India wearing "western" clothing (since it's easy for white westerners to Other/exoticize folks from Asia and Africa).

I found it a little weird to read "In Hindu legend, there once lived a bad king named Hiranyakashyap, who ordered his people to worship him as God. But his son, Prahlad, believed in the real God" (p. 6) when Hinduism is such a polytheistic religion, though the "A World of Holidays" book reminded me that, "Hindus believe that God is everywhere and in everything. They call his god Brahman. They believe that this one god---Brahman---can be pictured and thought about in many different forms. These forms are represented by gods and goddesses. The three main gods are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva" (p. 7).

This book is brief (and breezy) enough that you could probably read it to/with a child as a "let's learn about" experience without it feeling like a chore.