Growing Up Gupta

A Multicultural Lifestyle Blog
Maya & Neel’s India Adventure Series, Book 3: Let’s Celebrate Holi! India’s Festival of Colors Book Review

Maya & Neel’s India Adventure Series, Book 3: Let’s Celebrate Holi! India’s Festival of Colors Book Review

Maya & Neel’s India Adventure Series, Book 3:
Let’s Celebrate Holi! India’s Festival of Colors

Let’s Celebrate Holi Book Review

Let’s Celebrate Holi is an animated, fun, and engaging children’s book. Written in English by Ajanta Chakraborty and Vivek Kumar, this book takes the reader on a journey to India to celebrate Holi.  It is 38 pages in length, and it is suitable for children ages 3-7, and grades K-2.

Multicultural Kids Books about Holi

Learning about cultural celebrations, customs, traditions, holidays, etc. as someone that didn’t grow up in that culture can be difficult. And to make matters even more complicated trying to teach them to your children can be a massive undertaking. Which is why, as parents to a multicultural and biracial child we are always eager to share diverse books such as, Let’s Celebrate Holi.   This book is relatable and also a useful cultural learning tool.

Splendidly illustrated, Let’s Celebrate Holi is about a sister and brother named Maya and Neel. They are also multicultural kids that live in Chicago, IL but have family in India. Hence, with their pet squirrel, Chintu in tow they venture to India to meet their cousin, Ameya to celebrate Holi aka the Festival of Colors.

Our Thoughts

Upon opening this book, my five-year-old daughter and I knew that this would be a book that we would be reading time and time again. Not only does she love how closely the names of the main female characters names resemble her own, but the book also allows us to rehash our family trip to India, and to talk more about the upcoming Festival of Colors that our family celebrates here in the U.S.

Prudently, following the cover page of the book, you will find a pronunciation guide for some of the Hindi words referenced in the text. And of course, this is a huge plus and an excellent resource in itself for parent’s like myself that are teaching their kids Hindi. Additionally, this book provides the reader with a greater understanding of Holi as a Holiday.  In particular, the book discusses some of the mythology/history on Holi, the significance of the bonfire, how Holi celebrations vary across states in India (e.g., Ahmedabad, Manipur, and Punjab), Holi attire, traditional food and drinks that are eaten on Holi, etc. Without a doubt, this book is an exceptional resource for teaching kids about the importance of celebrating Holi in an easy and entertaining way.

Purchase Let’s Celebrate Holi here at Amazon.

Looking for a FREE Holi celebration/activity kit, download it from here: CultureGroove.com/Holi. And stay tuned for our GIVEAWAY of a copy of this book just in time for Holi thanks to Culture Groove.com!!!

About Culture Groove

Culture Groove is co-founded by Ajanta Chakraborty. She is an ex-technologist, mom of a 4-year-old and very passionate about multiculturalism. Our mission is to help parents, guardians and educators help Raise Multicultural Kids. For Kids of Indian origin, we want to help them connect with their Roots. 

Culture Groove Online Learning Resources

Culture Groove offers a series of 9 books for kids. Find their books at CultureGroove.com/books.  And they also provide some free online learning videos about India including animations, dance-alongs, story-time and more: CultureGroove.com/YouTube.

About the Author

Ajanta Chakraborty was born in Bhopal, India, and moved to North America in 2001. She earned an MS in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia and a Senior Diploma in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance, to feed her spirit.

Ajanta quit her corporate consulting job in 2011 and took the plunge to run Bollywood Groove full-time. The best part of her work day includes grooving with classes of children as they leap and swing and twirl to a Bollywood beat.

Vivek Kumar was born in Mumbai, India, and moved to the US in 1998. Vivek has an MS in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas, Austin, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

He has a very serious day job in management consulting. But he’d love to spend his days leaping and swinging, too.

Our story
We are co-founders of Bollywood Groove (bG), a Bollywood dance and fitness company for kids and adults. We started bG in 2008 in the Bay Area, California and then re-started it again in 2011 after we moved to Chicago.

We barely knew a soul in Chicago but were overwhelmed by the warmth and support of our loving Chicago community who showed a very strong interest to learn about and experience Indian culture. We slowly built bG from 1 to 30+ classes per week.

When we started our bG Kids! Program (ages 2-15) in 2011, we wanted our classes to be more than just dancing to popular Bollywood songs. We aspired to make our classes educational and to introduce our students to the rich and diverse culture of India in addition to learning a dance choreography.

To this effect, we introduced CultureZOOM, an immersion into Indian culture, that is taught in each class via fun activities — storytelling, games, craft projects and mini-plays. CultureZOOM has been very well received! Kids (and even parents) are excited to learn more about India and its rich cultural heritage. Over the years we have refined our approach and continue to test the content in our classes.

This book series is a way to share this content with a broader audience and we hope young readers will enjoy a glimpse into the beautiful cultural diversity that makes up India.

In our spare time — who are we kidding? We have a two-year-old toddler. Dancing, running Bollywood Groove, writing books, and chasing our very rambunctious child is all that we can fit in a day!