As for the children, many of them are likely back in the hectic swirl of homework and enrichment classes, hopefully with some fun and games thrown in. The latter will probably come in the form of computer games, fancy toys and gadgets, and such like.

Things were very different when some of us were growing up. When I was a child, fun at recess and after school came in the form of Zero Point (also called ‘Yeh-Yeh’), Five Stones and Chapteh. These games were simple and largely homemade, and they cost very little. But they kept entire generations of kids like me happy and sweaty. Check out Page 26 of The Little Singapore Book which shows lots of games we used to play in school in the 1970s and ’80s.

To celebrate the start of a new school year — hurray the kids are out of the house! — and these childhood games of yesteryear, we have prepared a fun colouring sheet. For some of you, it’s also a chance to share fond memories of your school days with the little ones.

The Little Singapore Book is available for sale at major bookstores in Singapore, including Books Ahoy, Books Kinokuniya, The Fullerton Shop at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Garden Shops at Botanic Gardens, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, Museum Shops at the National Museum and Asian Civilisation Museum, and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Books Kinokuniya, Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books, Owl Readers Club and Woods in the Books.

The post Back to School appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

The Sunda pangolin is native to Singapore, although you will not find many of them here now due to the loss of their habitat. As they are very slow moving, they are sometimes injured by passing vehicles when they stray from forested areas into roads. As recently as June this year, Acres Singapore rescued a pangolin that was stranded by the roadside. See the video here.

In many parts of the world, the Sunda pangolin has long been hunted for its skin, scales and meat, which are sold for high prices. Although governments around the globe have made it illegal to hunt and trade the pangolin, it has not stopped the poachers. According to World Wildlife Fund, around 195,000 pangolins were hunted and sold in 2019. In fact, it is probably the most trafficked mammal in the world. It is no surprise then that the pangolin is a critically endangered species close to extinction. Do your bit to Save the Pangolins here.

For little ones aged 4 to 7, use this fun colouring sheet to share all about this shy nocturnal animal that once roamed our island freely.

Tiger Tales: Almost True Stories from Old Singapore is available for sale at major bookstores in Singapore, including Books Ahoy, Books Kinokuniya, The Fullerton Shop at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Garden Shops at Botanic Gardens, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, Museum Shops at the National Museum and Asian Civilisation Museum, and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Books Kinokuniya, Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books, Owl Readers Club and Woods in the Books.

The post Guess who loves ants? appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

From cheeky macaques and fat otters to sweet songbirds and red-eyed koels that coo their wake-up calls every morning unfailingly, you will find many creatures large and small in the pages of the book. Of course, they are a small fraction of the wildlife that still call our island home.

According to National Parks, there are over 390 species of birds, 31 different species of amphibians, 69 types of mammals and more than 330 butterfly species in Singapore. There are 121 species of reptiles, including the mighty king cobra, a true blue native of the island. So keep your eyes peeled the next time you take a wander around the island with the family. Chances are high you will spot something exciting and exotic.

In the meantime, here’s a fun activity for little ones aged 6 to 8. It’s a word jungle out there. Can they spot the animals?

Tiger Tales: Almost True Stories from Old Singapore is available for sale at major bookstores in Singapore, including Books Ahoy, Books Kinokuniya, The Fullerton Shop at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Garden Shops at Botanic Gardens, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, Museum Shops at the National Museum and Asian Civilisation Museum, and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Books Kinokuniya, Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books, Owl Readers Club and Woods in the Books.

The post It’s a Jungle Out There! appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

With gleaming golden bands slung around a jet-black body, the snake that Chloe has drawn is as striking as they come. It is aptly called the Gold-Ringed Cat Snake, and sometimes also known as the Mangrove Cat Snake although it is not just found in mangroves. The biggest of four species of cat snakes found in Singapore, it can stretch out to 2.4 metres long when fully grown.

It is mostly nocturnal, which means it sleeps by day on tree branches and only slithers down to ground to hunt at nightfall. Rats, frogs, small birds, bats and even other snakes are just some of its favourite prey.

Like many of its cousins, it is venomous but not life-threateningly so. It can be found in many parts of Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. Here in Singapore, you may spot it in the Central Nature Catchment Reserve.

Check out our colouring sheet featuring the Gold-Ringed Cat Snake that’s perfect for keeping the little ones occupied.

Tiger Tales: Almost True Stories from Old Singapore is available for sale at major bookstores in Singapore, including Books Ahoy, Books Kinokuniya, The Fullerton Shop at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Garden Shops at Botanic Gardens, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, Museum Shops at the National Museum and Asian Civilisation Museum, and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Books Kinokuniya, Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books, Owl Readers Club and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books and Woods in the Books.

The post All that Glistens appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

Better yet, the next time you take a walk around the nature reserves or parks, keep a look out for them and see for yourself why Singapore is still wild at heart. Start with the kingfisher, a beautiful, brilliantly coloured bird that’s hard to miss.

In fact, there are up to eight different species of kingfishers that can be spotted here in Singapore, including the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) pictured here and on the cover of Tiger Tales. Perhaps it is so called because it can be found from Europe and Africa to many parts of Asia and Southeast Asia.

Standing at just 16cm tall, it is one of the smaller kingfishers in Singapore, but also one of the prettiest with its lovely blue coat and orange belly. Look out for it from August to March when it migrates from the colder countries up north. It loves to eat fish – which is why you’ll probably find it near ponds, rivers, canals and even the sea. In fact, anywhere where it can find fish.   

The largest kingfisher found in Singapore is the stork-billed kingfisher (Pelargopsis capensis), which stands more than twice as big at around 37cm. The largest kingfisher found in Singapore is the stork-billed kingfisher (Pelargopsis capensis), which stands more than twice as big at around 37cm. With its bright red bill, grey head, orange belly and blue top feathers, it is quite an impressive sight — if you are lucky enough to spot it, that is. Although it lives in Singapore, it is not very common at all. Occasionally, it has been sighted in Botanic Gardens and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. Apart from fish, the stork-billed kingfisher also likes small frogs, crabs and even small birds for its dinner!

Other kingfishers found in Singapore: the collared kingfisher, the most common one on the island; the ruddy kingfisher that’s probably named for its reddish-brown plumage; the blue-eared kingfisher; the black-capped kingfisher which has a black head, red bill and blue feathers; the white-throated kingfisher which has a white patch on its front; and last but not least, the Oriental dwarf kingfisher, the smallest at just 13cm.

Spot the kingfishers at Botanic Gardens, Kranji marshes, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and Central Catchment Nature Reserve.

Did You Know?
Many of us have sung of kookaburra, the merry merry king of the bush that sits on the old gum tree. But did you know that kookaburra is also sometimes called the Giant Kingfisher? Admittedly, this native of eastern Australia has some very un-kingfisher-like qualities: it prefers to eat meat, not fish. It is also rather plain with white and brown feathers, unlike its cousins with their beautiful, brightly coloured plumage. 

The post The Kings in Our Midst appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

It’s the latter that you will read about in our newest release titled Tiger Tales: Almost True Animal Stories from Old Singapore. We were very much inspired by the rich biodiversity of the island and we wanted to capture the time when it was wild and blanketed in lush rainforests. Through this, we hope to offer a precious glimpse of Singapore from long ago and the lives of its pioneers for a very special audience—our young readers.

In those early days, people lived side by side with creatures large and small. If you had lived on the island then, you might have spotted giant red flying squirrels gliding by, chased cheeky macaques from your yard, or danced to a sweet symphony of bird song on balmy jungle evenings.

Of course, things were very different then. How people at that time regarded and treated animals is very different from how we see the natural world now. There were often both fascination and fear when man met beast, and sadly, animals were hunted and killed.

But that was then. Far from capturing or killing animals these days, it is in fact our responsibility to care for and protect the animals that we share this planet with.

With time and modernisation, some of the animals drawn in the pages of Tiger Tales have disappeared from Singapore. Others are endangered.  Environmental groups and champions of biodiversity are working hard to protect them, and we hope to do our part by raising the awareness of the wildlife that still remain on our island. Read more about them in the final section of the book titled “Wild at Heart”, which celebrates some of the creatures that roam our island, as well as on this blog.

While some poetic licence was taken in their telling, all of the stories featured in Tiger Tales are inspired by documented historical events, from Sang Nila Utama’s encounter with a mysterious beast that led to the founding of Singapore, to the island’s infestation of pesky rats in the 1820s. Alongside the main stories, there are also many details in the book that point to yet more stories of other creatures that share this island with us.

We will be sharing some of these on this blog, along with some fun Tiger Tales-inspired craft, so come back here often!

Tiger Tales: Almost True Stories from Old Singapore is available for sale at major bookstores in Singapore, including Books Ahoy, Books Kinokuniya, The Fullerton Shop at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Garden Shops at Botanic Gardens, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, Museum Shops at the National Museum and Asian Civilisation Museum, and Woods in the Books.

It is also available online at Books Kinokuniya, Closetful of Books, Epigram Bookshop, Natventure Books, Owl Readers Club and Woods in the Books.

The post Tiger Tales: Almost True Animal Stories from Old Singapore appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

[Update: This exhibition has ended.]

Building History: Monuments in Bricks and Blocks is a brand new exhibition of eight of Singapore’s historical monuments, all built using LEGO.  Your kids like LEGO too? Bingo. They’d love it.

The eight landmarks turned into models include the National Museum, the lovely red and white Central Fire Station, old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, the Thian Hock Keng Temple, St Andrew’s Cathedral and Sultan Mosque. These big, adult-sized models were built with impressive detail, using over 110,000 toy bricks (ie. LEGO which did not sponsor this) in total.

The exhibition was organised by the National Heritage Board’s  Preservation of Sites and Monuments division, but the models were built by three designers from My Little Brick Shop Pte Ltd. We love the amount of research that went into designing and building the models, so they were as authentic and true to the original monuments as possible. According to the builders, they studied the original architectural plans of the buildings that they got hold of from the national archives (yes, really old documents), flew drones over the the buildings to capture the details from above, and visited many times to take photos to capture all the other details. That effort shows up in the 8 models which took seven months to complete– from the floor patterns of the Thian Hock Keng Temple to the coloured glass window of St Andrew’s Cathedral.

We were also thrilled to see that the bottles that decorate the base of the domes of Sultan Mosque were not left out too. As you well know, these bottles were donated by the poor in the Muslim community when the mosque was being built. It showed how inclusive the community was, where the poor was also given recognition–not just the wealthy. (You can read more about this story in The Little Singapore Book.) This was the largest model at the exhibition, weighing 40 kg and could not fit through a door. Just one of the golden domes itself is made up of 1,511 pieces of toy bricks.

Making these models had its challenges and the model makers had to improvise sometimes. For instance instead of green dragons on the roof of the Thian Hock Keng Temple model, they had to use red snakes instead as LEGO did not make toy dragons. The pillars of at its main entrance are gears with chains, instead of grand dragons coiling upwards. But you get the idea. The main hall of the temple was recreated by memory work because the security lady in the hall was adamant that no photography was allowed.

Getting this close to the landmarks lets you really see and appreciate the details of these buildings which may not be apparent even when you visit the actual site. This exhibition is a good way to start a conversation with youngsters kids about their history. What were they about? Who built them? And why? The answers to these will surely be a vivid tale of the communities that used them and all the amazing stories that lurk in their past.

The exhibition runs from now until 30 June. Guess the number of bricks used to build the Sultan Mosque and the three closest guesses will win LEGO models. The next 10 closest guesses will win a children’s storybook on national monuments. Just upload a photo of the Sultan Mosque model with your answer on your personal Facebook or Instagram accounts with the hashtags #BuildingHistorySG and #librarysg.

The exhibition will then travel to other libraries: Marine Parade Library (1-30 July), Jurong regional Library (1-30 August), Tampines Regional Library (1-29 Sep), Ang Mo Kio Library (1-30 Oct), Sengkang Public Library (1-29 Nov) and  Choa Chu Kang Library (1-30 Dec).

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But it’s not really that happy, of course, because the rivers and seas are choked with our plastic and the sea creatures are suffering and dying everyday. Just recently, a pilot whale died off Thailand and was found by rescuers to have eaten over 80 plastic bags! That’s just the most recent of thousands of sad tales of marine animals dying because of our plastic habit.

There are plenty of calls now to reduce using plastic. Change is slow, understandably but people are waking up to it. But is life with no plastic so unimaginable?

In our book The House on Palmer Road, the little protagonist Sing lived in 1930s Singapore when hardly any plastic was used at all. Perhaps we can take a few tips from her on living with little plastic or none at all. Here are a few tips from Sing.

Metal Lunch boxes 

Mother always packed Sing’s sandwiches in a metal lunch box for recess in school. This was great because she didn’t have to queue to buy food at the tuckshop, leaving her with more time to play five stones with her best friend Beng Neo. (You can read more about that in our upcoming sequel The House on Silat Road.) Take some inspiration from her — instead of plastic lunch boxes for school, use metal or stainless steel ones. The metal lunch boxes we have these days are just as funky (maybe even more than plastic ones!) and have the added benefit of looking sleek and chic. Bring it in a pretty insulated plastic-free lunch bag which will keep things either hot or cold if you use in icepack.

Tiffin carriers 

If you’re buying food home from the hawker centre, bring your own container for the hawker to use. Ah Seem or Big Sister would have used a tiffin carrier usually made of enamel to bring warm porridge or some lunch treat when they visited Grandmother during the war years. (You haven’t read about that, too? Look out for it in the upcoming sequel!) In fact, tiffin carriers are making a comeback decorated in pretty designs, like retro beauties pictured here. We like! So does Sing.

Bring your own Coffee Mugs

In the same vein, bring your own reusable cup for your regular coffee fix, instead of using those nasty styrofoam cups that hawker centres provide, or the paper cups at Starbucks and the like. These days there are lots of really nice stainless travel mugs that you can use, while making a stylish statement for the environment. We’d like one of these please…or five.

Water bottles instead of bottled water

…And instead of bottled water from the nearby Seven-eleven, put a teensy bit of effort and fill up water in your own plastic-free bottle or flask. After all, Singapore’s tap-water is completely drinkable. What’s more, an insulated flask gives you the added benefit of keeping cold drinks cold all day. Think iced water or ice lemon tea. A plastic disposable bottle can’t beat that.

Baskets for the Market 

Ah Seem would have brought her trusty wicker basket to  the market every day.  It would have carried everything she needed–from vegetables to fish wrapped in newspaper, dried prawns and eggs sitting in their paper mache carriers. And still have room for her wax paper umbrella in case it rained! Shop like Ah Seem and bring your own to the wet market or supermarket, and say no to the plastic bags which turtles and whales eventually choke on!

A Bar of Soap

Lots of plastic bottles are used for our liquid soap and shower gel. Think of how many we use every few months and how many are tossed away. Even if you used refills, they too come in plastic bags. Sing and her big family used good old bars of soap to bathe and wash their hands. It was so effective, even the night soil man carried his own bar of soap at the back of his truck! Liquid soap and shower gel were totally unheard of then.

Bars of soap come mostly packed in paper. Even if they did come in plastic packaging, it uses a lot less plastic than the bottles of liquid soap! So turn to bar soap, and help save the world with every bath you take!

So you see, it’s not that bad, is it? Sing, now 84 years old, has this one thing to say on World Environment Day, “People just don’t want to wash up after themselves these days! That’s why they use so much plastic.” If we just put in little more effort, we’ll go a long way to reducing plastic and doing some good for the only home we have. 

Happy Environment Day, everyone!

The post Sing’s Tips on Reducing Plastics appeared first on Pepperdog Press.

“Singapore’s first national day parade took place at the Padang on the morning of 9 August 1966. It rained that day but no one left their seats or position on the parade ground. Like today, the national anthem was sung, there was a 21-gun salute, performances and a huge march past. The finale was huge lion and dragon dance featuring 60 lions and dragons in total — the biggest ever in Singapore. At night, fireworks were set off at Fort Canning and lots of people went to enjoy it. The fireworks could be seen from the Istana, too, where Singapore’s first President Yusof bin Ishak was holding a party for 1,000 guests. Out at sea, there was an illuminated ‘sea dragon’ that was towed by boats across the waterfront off Princess Elizabeth Walk, near where the Esplanade is now. It measured 152m long, 12m high and was lit by 12,500 light bulbs! What a grand sight!”

If you want to find out more, see this video link below and watch the original participants reminisce about that amazing day!

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Can you imagine what life in Singapore was like over 75 years ago? A lot more different than we probably think. No plastic at all, no flushing toilets, cars without windscreen wipers or electric headlights, and lalang-covered fields where cows and goats wander. It’s in this setting that our second storybook takes place and we are too excited about it.

Titled “The House on Palmer Road”,  it recounts the adventures of Sing, a playful, tree-climbing, 8-year-old girl who lives with her family of in a wooden house in Palmer Road, together with her 9 brothers and sisters. Comprising 15 light-hearted tales, it is set in late 1930s Singapore, when the island was still a British colony, and just before WWII and the Japanese Occupation. In its pages, young readers go on all sorts of adventures with Sing, from frog hunting in the wasteland, to being chased by guard geese in dark godowns, to evenings in the Great World Amusement Park. Often taking place in the sunlit outdoors, it promises to be a playful enjoyable read for youngsters.

But in the background, the world is on the brink of World War II: readers (and Sing) encounter this through distant snatches of conversation and references by the grown-ups about impending war, the advance of the Japanese, the plight of relatives back in China. While all worrying, these are half understood by Sing and both protagonists and readers are focused on the playfulness of the stories without feeling too threatened by what’s happening around the world.

The stories, characters and places in The House on Palmer Road are all real, because they are based on the childhood of co-author Si Hoe S.S., a first time author at 83 years old!  The wooden house on Palmer Road, after which the book is titled and where the family of 13 lived, was built by her father, a building contractor. The landscape is vividly detailed based on her also-photographic memory, which we also verified against old maps and photographs and archival material to ensure accuracy.

We had released this book in early February, just before Singapore observed the 75th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in WWII (15 Feb 1942). This is significant because the story ends when Singapore fell.

What’s particularly unique about this book is it presents pre-war Singapore through the eyes of a local, and a child to boot. There is very little written of this period from a local’s perspective: most accounts of pre-war Singapore have been written by the British colonials then, and many local people of that time — except for the local elite — were not educated enough to do so. So this presents a rarely seen account of Singapore.

Meanwhile, we got a really talented Singaporean artist Lim Anling to provide us lots of charmingly playful illustrations to go along with it. Helping to tell the story are her 58 illustrations which you see a sample of here. She is incidentally also the artist behind our Singapore postage stamp series “Vanishing Trades”. The House on Palmer Road was published with some help from a grant by the National Heritage Board.

It is currently available at the Books Kinokuniya, Books Ahoy, Woods in the Books, localbooks.sg, Closetful of Books, Tango Mango, and at the National Museum of Singapore and Asian Civilisations Museum. Priced at $12 before GST.

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