You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high, has the makings of an unforgettable story. Whether your goal is to deliver the perfect wedding toast, give a moving eulogy, ace a job interview or simply connect more deeply to those around you, The Moth is here to help. A leader in the modern storytelling movement, The Moth inspires thousands of people around the globe to share their stories each year. Summary: A moth's survival journey starts immediately after it is born. These moths with peppered wings rely on the trees surrounding them to stay hidden. This adaptation has always worked until buildings begin to go up and their surroundings begin to change. The moth's journey to survival continues in this new habitat, as the trees have become covered in soot. These moths learn how to adapt and flourish in this new land as the Industrial Revolution is booming. My late friend Allan Segal, who made television documentaries--including a famous one about India’s partition and independence for Granada's End of Empire series--blamed England for the unimaginable violence that ensued, following its hasty 1947 withdrawal from its former colony. The divide-and-conquer policies initiated by the British East India Company and continued under the Raj fomented radical nationalism among Hindus and Muslims. It’s also gives us ‘hope’ for the future about our world and encourages children that change can be a good thing. Year 5 and 6 pupils at West Park Primary School were tasked with retelling the story of the peppered moth as a Shakespearean sonnet

Moth by Melody Razak | Review by Mairéad Hearne Moth by Melody Razak | Review by Mairéad Hearne

Moth by Melody Razak was published June 24th with Weidenfeld & Nicolson (W&N Books) with The Observer describing it as ‘powerful and heartbreaking.’ I finished reading Moth with a lump in my throat and my mind in turmoil. Her younger sister Roop is a free spirited individual with a very quirky personality. Roop sees the world very differently from others in her family. She fears nothing, has a peculiar relationship with death and, as the story progresses, she becomes very important to the family’s survival. The larger and paler females are nocturnal and are occasionally attracted to light.' 9. Lunar hornet moth ( Sesia bembeciformis)

Interesting Insects

Melody Razak tells this story in Moth, her remarkable debut novel. A pastry chef and café owner, she was inspired to go for an MFA in her forties after listening to elderly survivors recount their experiences on a radio program, Partition Voices, (ah, BBC Radio 4 . . .) “It wasn’t just about the political and geographical rupture in India,”she said in an interview for the Telegraph of India, “It was ruptures between families, between friends, between people because there was so much love there. And that was kind of ripped apart.” Shrouded by night, with hot rain falling and red hibiscus in bloom, a teenage girl crouches over a baby beneath a mango tree. She grips a steel paring knife, her arm hesitating as the rain seems to goad her on: “This is how you birth a nation,” it tells her. Moths, like all insects, provide vital ecological services, including as food sources for other organisms. Their predators include birds, mammals and spiders.

Moth by Melody Razak review – the end of innocence in India

Alessandro Giusti, Lepidoptera Curator at the Museum, explains that brilliantly coloured moths are often day-flying species or those keen to display their distastefulness to predators.A book aimed at KS2 with a heavy focus on change, survival, evolution and natural selection. I feel this book is really good at showing children why animals adapt and how they change over time. Melody Razak felt inspired to write Moth after listening to a Radio 4 programme called ‘Partition Voices’. The emotion of the speakers caught her unexpectedly and she felt very much compelled to do further research. She explored in more depth the history of India’s partition and the scale of the brutality inflicted on all sides, focussing in particular on the women. Melody Razak took her research very seriously travelling to India and living there for a year while writing Moth The prose was lyrical and courageous, championing Alma's father for his dedication to seeing women as human beings. But Razak did not shy away from depicting the downside of a non-misogynistic patriarch during a time of widespread violence either. Complexity and nuance, yes please! This is but one example of many.

Moth identification guides | Butterfly Conservation Moth identification guides | Butterfly Conservation

Alessandro says, 'The pattern on the wings is variable and no two garden tiger moths are exactly alike - even the two wings of an individual can be different. The Museum's collections have specimens of this moth with all sorts of variations.' Alessandro says, 'Male emperor moths fly during the day in sunshine, using feathered antennae to smell out the pheromones produced by females. Parish CE School in St Helens used Moth to inspire every class to create a stunning collaborative moth artwork A trillion words, a million perspectives, over thousands of books, yet, nothing.... nothing braces you as the horrors washes anew with every account told, with every memory rehearsed from the partition era. Learn to write a sciku – In this video, you’ll meet some of Isabel’s favourite moths, record notes using a special template, and learn how to turn these notes into a science haiku or ‘sciku’.A stunning display of writing by pupils at Harrow Gate Academy, whose teachers used Moth as part of CLPE’s Power of Reading An essential guide to the smaller or 'Micro' lepidoptera of Britain, over 1500 high quality plates and photos, bringing together these previously difficult insects together in one handy volume for the first time. They are also important pollinators. Alessandro says, 'Moths pollinate a wide variety of plants, including wildflowers and some crops, as they search for nectar.' What do moths eat? There are also rites of passage and social history elements to the story, which is at heart a family story. The main protagonists are a prosperous Brahmin family in which the main protagonist Alma and her tomboyish younger sister Roop grow up. Other characters exist mainly to demonstrate the religious and cultural diversity of Delhi. Nature literature? Always on my radar, and the synopsis for Moth sounded special. Bloomsbury Children's Books provided a review copy in exchange for an honest review.