A father-daughter collaboration offers insights into the human spirit

Mar 25, 2018 News

Book: Raising The Beautiful Sun
Authors: Burt and Surya Sinanan
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

Raising the Beautiful Sun is a father-daughter collaboration that speaks to us on multiple levels. Surya Sinanan’s sentiments and lofty dreams are articulated with the richness and purity of innocence. And therein is much to ponder. Her intuitiveness lends grace to her every pronouncement.
With guidance from her father, Burt, Surya unveils the imaginative wonderment of childhood. Traversing multiple themes, Surya’s template invites readers to pen or illustrate their thoughts. It is there that character and personality are exteriorized. A perfect construct, no less, for self-analysis.
Clearly, Surya, who is nine years of age, has presented a work that’s hardly confined by age. In fact, her material is anthemic and timely.
Girl Power with its catchy, mantra-like cadence is empowering. “Best princesses, Best pilots, Best racers of cars, Best engineers, Best swimmers [and] Best astronauts on Mars,” she affirms with palpable glee.
Surya, like all witty children, has an inquiring mind. She probes her surroundings. In The Thames, she recalls an overseas travel in the United Kingdom. She is puzzled by the magnitude and flow of the famous river. And the UK’s unfamiliar weather patterns piques her interest in London Fog. “Why is it, there is this fog?” Who is it, this mysterious mist?”…I know, I’ll ask the Queen. But then again, he hides her too, For never is she seen.” she ends, on a note of innocent levity.
“Why the river flows both ways?” “What is a tide? I am puzzled at this silly river,” she tells her Dad.
In the eponymous, Raising the Beautiful Sun, the father-daughter dynamic comes to life. Every line invokes hope, joy, radiance and gratitude. “I am the one,” Surya says, basking in her father’s love for her, as she recalls his words, “Shine bright my darling, For all the world to see. Shine bright my sweetheart, We’re blessed as blessed could be.”
Family is central in Surya’s life as it should be to every child. Hers is an inextricable bond that is evident in Family Recipe, a cleverly crafted poem that weaves the comfort and warmth of family life into her culinary endeavours. “What makes my family sweet? What makes them a yummy treat?” she asks rhetorically.
This family bond extends to Neevy, Surya’s cousin of whom she speaks in superhuman terms. “Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Ironman, Hulk and Thor is he…”
And later, in Training Wheels, she relates the difficulties of riding a bike for the first time to other challenges in life.
She poses the right questions: Do you remember falling down and getting up? Do you need help with anything in your life right now?”
Overwhelmingly nostalgic is That Pony in My Head, that captures the fantastical request from a child to a parent.
And among the many captivating poems, Nurses and Lollipops stands out for its pace, atmosphere and imagery. In this endearing work, every sense comes alive as Surya describes her interaction with a member of a medical team. Of her nurse, she pens. “Soothing my pains. Tapping my veins, Rubbing those creams, Calming my nerves. Why did you say it will be over soon? Why did you say it will stop now. It did not.” She ends, imploring, “And please don’t exchange lollipops for needles and bawls. That makes no sense at all, for all, at all.”
Raising the Beautiful Sun is written with an unmistakable joie de vivre. It is refreshingly inspiring. It is through the prism of purity that we envisage a world free of calumny and depravity. Regrettably, we are stained psychically from the travails of relationships and work. Children, though, are different. It is their unsullied essence that we find raw wisdom void of all hubris. Aren’t we counseled in the Good Book that a little child shall lead? But we heed not.
And blinded by self-serving arrogance we unwittingly open the gates of peril.
Raising the Beautiful Sun by Burt and Surya Sinanan
Publisher: Burt Sinanan
ISBN: 9781512190649
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Recommended
Feedback: glenvilleashby@gmail .com or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby

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