The Day It Rained Fish

Author: Ramendra Kumar

Illustrator: Delwyn Remedios

Avanti was the zookeeper of Pitara zoo.

There were many, many animals in Pitara, but Avanti's best friend was Ballu, the bear. Ballu was big, brown and strong.

On his fourth birthday, Avanti organised a little party for Ballu.

“Ballu, can you blow out all the candles at once?” Avanti asked.

“Of course!” said Ballu. He filled his chest with air. He huffed and puffed and puffed and huffed and went “WHOOSH!”

The blast of air blew the candles out. Then rising up, it crashed into the clouds in the sky. And all of a sudden, there was was a roar of thunder and it started to rain.

“Hey, it’s raining fish,” Avanti shouted.

Ballu looked around with wonder. Then he picked up a huge basket and ran around collecting fish as they fell from the sky.

Every time the basket filled, he dropped the fish in a little pond and ran back for more.

Then, as he was rushing for the tenth time to the pond, he turned back. The water level had risen and he could see that Avanti was scared.

Ballu came back quickly, picked Avanti up and placed her on his shoulders.

Avanti put her arms around Ballu's neck and thanked him.

Soon, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. It was bright and cheerful once again.

“I will never again ask you to blow the candles out,” said Avanti.

“Why?”asked Ballu.

“Who knows? Next time it might start raining frogs,” Avanti said and the two friends started laughing.

#6FrameStoryChallenge: A Carnival of Art

The illustrations in this book were created as part of the #6FrameStoryChallenge, an online campaign run by Pratham Books to build a rich bank of illustrations for StoryWeaver. The essence of the #6FrameStoryChallenge was to tell a good story using just 6 illustrations.

The campaign inspired nearly 70 illustrators to donate their time and skills to India’s first open-source story-publishing platform for children. What started out as an experimental campaign soon blossomed into a carnival of art, birthing nearly 500 new illustrations.

These wordless narratives cut across language barriers, opening up a world of possibilities, encouraging StoryWeaver’s growing community to dream up multiple stories around these images. The #6FrameStoryChallenge is a powerful reminder of the need for collaboration, to get closer to our mission: “A Book in Every Child’s Hand.”

This book was made possible by Pratham Books' StoryWeaver platform. Content under Creative Commons licenses can be downloaded, translated and can even be used to create new stories provided you give appropriate credit, and indicate if changes were made. To know more about this, and the full terms of use and attribution, please visit the following link .

Story Attribution:

This story: The Day It Rained Fish is written by Ramendra Kumar . © Pratham Books , 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license.

Other Credits:

This story was first published on StoryWeaver. It was created as part of StoryWeaver's 'Weave-a-Story' campaign which focussed on translating stories into as many languages as possible. https://storyweaver.org.in/

Illustration Attributions:

Cover page: Bear and girl in the rain , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 2: Bear and the girl with the birthday cake , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 3: Bear blowing the candles , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 4: Girl and bear in the rain , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 5: Bear and girl in the fish rain , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 6: Girl and bear in the flood , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 7: Bear carrying a girl in the flood , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 8: Bear carrying a girl , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 9: 6frame collage , by Delwyn Remedios © Pratham Books, 2015. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Disclaimer: https://www.storyweaver.org.in/terms_and_conditions

Some rights reserved. This book is CC-BY-4.0 licensed. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. For full terms of use and attribution, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Day It Rained Fish (English)

Strange things happen at Ballu the bear's birthday party. Follow him and Avanti the zookeeper as they get drenched in a rain of fish.

This is a Level 2 book for children who recognize familiar words and can read new words with help.

Pratham Books goes digital to weave a whole new chapter in the realm of multilingual children's stories. Knitting together children, authors, illustrators and publishers. Folding in teachers, and translators. To create a rich fabric of openly licensed multilingual stories for the children of India and the world. Our unique online platform, StoryWeaver, is a playground where children, parents, teachers and librarians can get creative. Come, start weaving today, and help us get a book in every child's hand!