CROCUS: Celebrate Reading Of Culturally Unique Stories

Since 2007, Saffron Tree (ST) has been a household name: not only do I contribute to this wonderful repository of children's book reviews, but also benefit from its expanding resource, thanks to fellow moms/dad, friends, who have become almost like family over these past few years.

For the third year in a row, we are celebrating ST's birthday with our homegrown festival CROCUS: Celebrate Reading Of Culturally Unique Stories. Each year we focus on a theme to keep things interesting and entertaining.

CROCUS 2009 had us going around the world to bring stories to our kids, tales we had not read before - folk tales, fairy tales, trickster tales - from each of the continents, all reinforcing the fact that it is One World, despite our geographical boundaries.

CROCUS 2010 had us exploring multiculturalism based on aspects that make up the crux or core of a culture - mythology, folklore, arts, crafts, dance, music, lifestyle, food, traditions, festivals, even games.

Now that it is time for CROCUS 2011, we've pulled up our socks and gotten around to yet another adventure in understanding our world and in turn ourselves: The Five Elements. Most ancient civilizations recognized common elements of nature that pervade the universe we inhabit, attributing all material (perhaps non-material) objects to be made up of five elements variously identified as Air, Water, Fire, Aether/Space, Earth. And that is what we are exploring and celebrating for CROCUS 2011.

Our very own CROCUSWord - a crossword game for kids and adults, interviews with wonderful folk who do what they do to preserve, protect and raise awareness about the elements, books of course, plus arts and crafts are all lined up to be shared with you over the next week.

Please Join us for CROCUS 2011 from Oct 23rd to Oct 30th at www.saffrontree.org. Readership and comments are a great way to connect with each other and support our efforts... and we hope to see you there cheering us on, not just at the festival but all through.