The Bharunda Bird

Retells a story from the ancient collection called The Panchatantra about a two-headed bird that teaches a lesson about the importance of cooperation.

Retells a story from the ancient collection called The Panchantantra about a two-headed bird that teaches a lesson about the importance of cooperation.

One body, two heads! Here we have an unusual story of a bird with two heads. What happens when they decide to eat fruit from a tree?

Rohan Candappa, author of bestselling humour books such as the Little Book of Stress and The Curious Incident of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, is the son of a Sri Lankan father and Burmese mother. He grew up small and round in South London, riding his chopper bike and supporting Leeds United. But every day his mother would conjur delicious meals out of thin air. His father cooked too, with fiery flavourings, black curries and green coriander chutneys. Their home became the focus for family gatherings and feasts of such delicacy and exoticism that you'd never have known Norwood lay outside the window. Yet somewhere in his twenties Rohan forgot his culinary heritage and it wasn't until he was bringing up his own young family that he began to think more about his identity as a second generation immigrant and the binding, identifying power of the family meal caught his imagination. And so he began this beautifully written, funny, poignant memoir of his heritage and his home. Of curry leaves and curried chips. Hot chillis and hot dogs. Pataks and Heinz. About the past and the present - and the place where time should cease to matter... the family kitchen.

Panchatantram is well known for its stories for kids. But that is only half the story. One should read the complete book to understand different strategies it presents to adapt for real life situations. This rendition of the original work covers all the stories in easy-to-understand Sanskrit in a simple story-telling format. After each story, its English translation is given. Under each story, a one-line message conveyed by that story is given.

First recorded 1500 years ago, but taking its origins from a far earlier oral tradition, the Pancatantra is ascribed by legend to the celebrated, half-mythical teacher Visnu Sarma. Asked by a great king to awaken the dulled intelligence of his three idle sons, the aging Sarma is said to have composed the great work as a series of entertaining and edifying fables narrated by a wide range of humans and animals, and together intended to provide the young princes with vital guidance for life. Since first leaving India before AD 570, the Pancatantra has been widely translated and has influenced a cast number of works in India, the Arab world and Europe, including the Arabian Nights, the Canterbury Tales and the Fables of La Fontaine. Enduring and profound, it is among the earliest and most popular of all books of fables.

Good Press presents to you this meticulously edited collection of the most-beloved and enjoyed children's classics of all time. We include the educational classics retold for children, but also - the eternally enchanting tales of dragons, magical creatures, fantastic adventures and animal stories: Dragon Tales: The Reluctant Dragon My Father's Dragon The Book of Dragons Animal Tales & Fables: The Tale of Peter Rabbit The Tale of Benjamin Bunny... Mother West Wind Series The Burgess Bird Book for Children The Burgess Animal Book for Children The Velveteen Rabbit Uncle Wiggily's Adventures & Other Tales Little Bun Rabbit Mother Goose in Prose Lulu's Library The Jungle Book... White Fang Black Beauty The Story of Doctor Dolittle... Aesop Fables The Panchatantra Russian Picture Fables for the Little Ones The Russian Garland: Folk Tales Fairy tales & Fantasies: Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm Complete Fairy Books of Andrew Lang Five Children and It... Peter Pan Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Collection At the Back of the North Wind The Princess and the Goblin Tanglewood Tales... All the Way to Fairyland Friendly Fairies... Old Peter's Russian Tales Childhood Adventures: Robin Hood Pinocchio Gingerbread Man Little Women The Secret Garden A Little Princess The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Journey to the Centre of the Earth Treasure Island... Anne of Green Gables Collection... The Wind in the Willows The Box-Car Children The Railway Children Oliver Twist David Copperfield... Classics Retold: The Iliad of Homer Odysseus The Arabian Nights Entertainments Viking Tales Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table Chaucer for Children Tales from Shakespeare Don Quixote The Pilgrim's Progress Robinson Crusoe Voyage to Lilliput Little Goody Two-Shoes & Mrs Margery Two-Shoes Charles Dickens' Children Stories The Story of Hiawatha Uncle Tom's Cabin Pocahontas