Flower of the woods is a fictional narration of a junglekid Mali, presented in poetry form.
Mali is born in a very beautiful village called Floria which is nestled in a faraway land among the forests. Mali’s parents – Giri and Nadia go through the usual anticipation of her birth but choose too abandon her because of the evil omens at birth amplified by eerie looks she had.
Not known to anyone, Mali is bestowed with a special gift that spreads as she grows up. Abandoned in the jungle, Mali is adopted, cared for by a hog family with piglets as her siblings. As Mali grows, her special ability of making everything around her merry by just her smile manifests unbelievable miracles in the jungle. Animals, birds, plants and everything around her just blossom in unified exhilaration of her presence.
As everyone begins to experience this miracle, The news of a special junglekid Mali’s spreads, first within the jungle and then to the villages. It reaches Giri and Nadia who are still trying to find their lives and happiness before they let Mali go. Nadia is especially unable to bear her plight and she finds herself losing her love for Giri unable to convince Giri to change his mind. She finally sneaks out into the jungle hoping to get a chance to hold her precious angel one more time. She is in for a surprise and fate does a turn for her too…
The story weaves around the interaction between good & bad as the characters and emotions mingles with happiness, grief, optimism, envy, trust, fear, compassion and resent shaping the consequences. The interplay unfolds a wondersome world of fantasies and dreams. Using a rhyming form and subtle illustrations, I try to convey this message in the form of a story woven around characters of the jungle and the village.
The key characters of these books are “Mali” – the junglekid whose story unfolds as the she is born and grows up with the forest animals; her parents – “Giri” and “Nadia”; “Sante” – village wiseman, “Balon” – village Strong man, “Ari” – wood gatherer, Mali’s hog parents “Swarna” and “Swari”, “Swupi” the hog kid and Maali’s best friend, the king of Jungle “Kesha” and “Aema” the lioness, “Kalan” the scheming fox who feasts on helpless animal kids and is the King’s sworn enemy.
While the target audience for this book will be children between the ages of 8-14, I believe that there is enough excitement for serious readers and some general readers with an exploring mind. Being in rhyming poetry form, it would be a great learning tool for children with different abilities and learning disorders.
This book also offers an opportunity for parents of younger kids to use this as a read along book for them. The poetry format allows both of them to paint the details with their own imagination and build a life-long memory.
To give an easy and sustained pace this book is organized in chapters and each chapter has a distinct start and stop. I would also got some illustrations worked out to enhance the appeal of the book to kids. I haven’t finalized an illustrator, but have some sample illustrations and I am on a look out for someone who would be committed to illustrate the whole book.
The plan is to have about 60 chapters with 8 stanzas of 4 lines each for the book one. The plot however offers the scope to be expansive and can be extended into a series based on the readers response.