A magical journey around our land
Life is a magical journey in which anything is possible with a touch of imagination and inspiration. A recent children’s book titled, ‘Luk in Sri Lanka’, is testimony to this.
‘Luk in Sri Lanka’, a picture book, written by Srianjali Gunasena and illustrated by Nuria Lamsdorff is the first in the series ‘The Travels of Luk’. It was published in 2013 and is available in Sri Lanka, Australia and Britain.
Srianjali is Anglo-Sri Lankan, born in the UK but now residing in Cairns, Australia. Having lived and worked in Sri Lanka for five years, she was able to get firsthand experience of the island’s uniqueness. Nuria, is an artist from Barcelona, Spain, who has visited Sri Lanka many times. It was the passion for exploration shared by both that led to the decision to write a travel series for children.
‘Luk in Sri Lanka’ is about a child named Luk who travels the world using “a sprinkle of magic”. The first destination of his long journey is Sri Lanka. “Sri Lanka is exotic, with delicious food and amazing scenery — a great topic for a children’s book,” says Srianjali.
The young explorer meets a leopard which offers to take him sightseeing. They use a tuk tuk to visit the four corners of Sri Lanka, seeing the Kandy Esala Perahera, climbing Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada), worshipping at the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, sun-bathing at Arugam Bay and lying on Swami Rock (Lover’s Leap) in Trincomalee.
Apart from the book being a travel guide to the tourist destinations of Sri Lanka, it also presents salient features of the conventional Sri Lankan lifestyle — Luk wears a sarong for the first time, speaks a few words in Sinhala and Tamil, enjoys string hoppers and curd at a paddy farmer’s house, uses a squatting toilet and even ploughs a paddy field with a buffalo.
The simple, poetic language of the author is coupled with awe-inspiring illustrations. This combination makes ‘Luk in Sri Lanka’ a suitable choice for children of all ages.
A characteristic that makes this book stand out is that it is a travel guide aimed at children. “The number of families that regularly travel overseas is increasing exponentially and there is a need for literature that helps to increase cultural knowledge and awareness for children who are either travelling to those countries or who want to learn about different cultures from the comfort of their own home. This is why we decided to go down this path,” explained Srianjali.
It is also a good travel guide for adults as it covers a multitude of well-known tourist spots. “My aim is to promote responsible tourism in Sri Lanka. We hope readers feel like they have travelled through Sri Lanka just by reading the book,” she says.
The two main characters of ‘Luk in Sri Lanka’ also have interesting background stories. Luk is a gender neutral character and readers would be able to identify Luk with their own gender. The author and the illustrator chose a leopard guide to bring attention to the leopard which is an endangered animal in Sri Lanka.
“I used real pictures as a base for the backgrounds and some of the characters. All are made on the computer using Photoshop and a tablet for drawing,” said Nuria.
This technique makes the illustrations vivid and realistic.
‘Luk in Sri Lanka’, according to the author not only entertains as a children’s picture book should do, but also inspires and educates. While delivering factual knowledge about another culture, it gives an insight into how to approach other cultures respectfully and what responsible tourism means. It is in essence a cultural reference book.
The response to ‘Luk in Sri Lanka’ has been positive. To promote the self-published book, Srianjali released an iTunes app in September 2014 under the same name which includes a sound dimension of animal noises and jungle sounds. It is available for all iPhone and iPad users on www.itunes.apple.com.
The creators of ‘The Travels of Luk’ series are currently working on their next book, ‘Luk in Spain’. They hope to publish books to cover at least one country in each continent.
‘Luk in Sri Lanka’ is available at leading bookshops.