...it is, indeed, a pleasure to wish Godspeed to this volume SiRiKKUM POOKKAL (Smiling Flowers) by a writer who has made ‘Children's Literature’ his own elected field and Cultivated it with love, dedication and perseverance over a period of Several decades. ...Lisping in numbers at the age of CHHipREN'S POET thirteen, Valliappa hasn't looked AŁ.WfAÍ_įįAPPA back, and his books for children (prose and verse) number almost sixty. He has also been a force, a movement, a trend - setter and as early as 1950 he brought into being the Association of Tamil Writers for Children and has served the Cause of Children's Literature in Tamilnadu and all india in many significant ways. Like the two eariier volumes (Malarum Ullam I and II ), the latest SłR}}{KUM POOKKAL is also structured with 5 Sections of children's verse and a section each of story - poems and humorous verse, The higest values, the sublimest verities, achieve recordation in the simplest possible ‘Living Language of the tribe'. With Children's songs, it is rather like showers in the Sunshine, smiles and tears teasing one another, May hope that each smiling flower in this laterst garner from Thiru ALValliappa's garden of poesy will help the children of Tamil Nadu and India in their adventure of aspiration, awakening and steady progress in self-growth and self-realisation. - к.R. sRINIVAsA IYENGAR Fellow, Sahitya Akademi
