Ganesha's Sweet Tooth Read online

  Contents

  Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth

  Authors’ Note

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  GANESHA is a Hindu god. He’s very important and powerful. And a tad chubby.

  But when he was a kid, he was just like any other kid …

  except that he had an elephant’s head and cruised around on a magical mouse collecting fruit, rice, sweets, and other gifts from the temples in his neighborhood.

  Ganesha loved to eat sweets and candy, especially the traditional Indian dessert laddoo.

  His best friend, Mr. Mouse, could eat only one at a time, which was okay by Ganesha. He didn’t want to share all his laddoos!

  “Squeak!”

  One day while Ganesha and Mr. Mouse were out looking for sweets, they discovered a new kind of laddoo …

  THE SUPER JUMBO JAWBREAKER LADDOO!

  Ganesha snatched up the shiny treat and was about to eat it right there on the spot.

  “Wait!” squeaked Mr. Mouse.

  “Don’t eat it! It’s a JAWBREAKER! It’ll break your tusk!”

  “But I’m a god,” said Ganesha. “I’m invincible.”

  Ganesha popped the laddoo in his mouth. He bit down, and …

  “Squeak! Oh, no!” Mr. Mouse yelled.

  “How will I ever put my tusk back on?” Ganesha wailed.

  Ganesha was very clever and tried all sorts of ideas….

  “What if I tie it on with string? What if I stick it on with glue? Maybe I could just hold it on with my hand?”

  But nothing worked.

  “I look lopsided!” he said. “Everyone will laugh at me.”

  “No, they won’t,” said Mr. Mouse. “Everyone loses their teeth. And besides, you already have an elephant’s head and your friends still love you.”

  Ganesha wasn’t convinced. He thought he looked awful. Me took all his anger and frustration and hurled his tusk at the moon. But the tusk didn’t hit the moon.

  It sailed over a bush and hit the head of an old man who was walking by!

  “Is this your tusk?” the old man asked.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ganesha. “I didn’t mean to hit you. I was aiming for the moon.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Ganesha and this is Mr. Mouse.”

  “You’re Ganesha?!” the old man exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for you.

  I’m Vyasa, the poet, and I need a special scribe for a poem. It’s so long that no man could ever write the whole thing—all the pens in the world would break before it was done.”

  “I’m not a man,” said Ganesha, “and I love stories. But I don’t have anything to write with.”

  “What about your tusk?” Vyasa asked.

  “That’s just a big tooth,” Ganesha said.

  “It’s a very special tooth,” Vyasa explained, handing Ganesha a piece of paper. “Give it a try.”

  Ganesha took the paper and pressed down with the tip of his tusk. It made a mark! Ganesha was so excited that he drew a flower, and a tree, and a picture of Mr. Mouse, along with a few of his other favorite things.

  “I LOVE my tusk!” said Ganesha. “I’d be happy to help you. What is the story about?”

  “The beginning of things,” said Vyasa. “It’s rather hard to sum up. It’s called the Mahabharata.”

  “Excuse me!” said Mr. Mouse, jumping on the end of Ganesha’s trunk. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but what exactly are the terms of this agreement? It is a very long poem, after all. Can you tell the whole story in one go, Vyasa? No stopping?”

  “As long as Ganesha understands the meaning of everything I say.”

  “Can I eat sweets while I write?” asked Ganesha.

  “As long as you don’t stop writing,” said Vyasa.

  Ganesha and Mr. Mouse agreed. “Let’s begin!”

  As Vyasa spoke, Ganesha put his tusk to the paper and began writing. Soon he forgot all about the super jumbo jawbreaker laddoo and how funny he looked. He even forgot about the sweets he wanted to eat.

  “Long ago,” Vyasasaid, “there lived a very brave king of Hastinapur. One day when he was out hunting, he happened upon a beautiful woman sitting on the banks of the Ganga River…”

  One hundred thousand verses later, Ganesha put down his tusk. The Mahabharata—the great epic of Hindu literature—was complete.

  Ganesha peeked around a stack of paper and saw that Mr. Mouse had been eating his way through the laddoos as they worked—the poem had taken a very long time!

  But Ganesha was happy to see there were still a few left for him and his friends.

  The End

  Authors’ Note

  The story of how Ganesha broke his tusk is one of the most popular legends in Hindu mythology. In it, the poet Vyasa asks the great god Ganesha to transcribe the Mahabharata, which is an ancient epic Sanskrit poem. Ganesha agrees to help as long as Vyasa can recite the poem without stopping. Vyasa agrees with the condition that Ganesha understand everything he says before he writes it down. Soon after they begin, Ganesha’s pen breaks. In order to keep writing, clever Ganesha quickly breaks off his tusk and uses that to finish recording the tale. From then on, Ganesha was also known as Ekadanta, the one-toothed god.

  Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth is not a retelling of this classic legend, though it is loosely based on the story. Some elements and scenes in this book are not found in Hindu mythology (the super jumbo jawbreaker laddoo!), and we changed certain plot points to develop an original and, we hope, fun picture book. Our wish is that readers will be entertained and enchanted by Ganesha and Mr. Mouse and that they’ll be inspired to learn even more about the rich and varied stories of Hindu mythology.

  For young readers (and adults) who are unfamiliar with the few foreign words in the story, here is a guide to the most common pronunciations: Laddoo: LA-du; Mahabharata: muh-HAH-BAHR-uh-tuh; Ganesha: guh-NAY-shuh; Vyasa: vee-YA-sha.

  —Sanjay Patel & Emily Haynes

  To all my nieces and nephews. Be sure to share your laddoos. —Sanjay

  To my mom and dad, for giving me a love of books, and

  everything else.—Emily

  SANJAY PATEL is an animator and storyboard artist for Pixar Animation Studios, where he has worked on many features including A Bug’s Life and Cars 2. Sanjay is also the creator of Ramayana: Divine Loophole, The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities, and The Little Book of Hindu Deities. He lives in Oakland, California. Learn more about Sanjay at Gheehappy.com.

  EMILY HAYNES is an editor by day, specializing in entertainment and humor titles, and a children’s writer by night. In her spare time she can often be found up to her elbows in clay, making functional ceramics. This is her first children’s book. She lives in Oakland, California.

  Super jumbo thanks to Julie Romeis, Amy Achaibou, Adobe Illustrator, and Neutraface.

  Text © 2012 by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes. Illustrations © 2012 by Sanjay Patel.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

  ISBN 978-1-4521-1984-7

  Chronicle Books LLC

  680 Second Street

  San Francisco, California 94107

  www.chroniclekids.com

 

 

  Emily Haynes, Ganesha's Sweet Tooth

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