Duckbill has brought out a series of hOle Books, which invite you to ‘Jump into reading through a Duckbill hOle’ for children 7 and up. I jumped in with two books, and was glad I did.
Chumki and the Pangolin is set in Bagmundi village in Purulia, at the edge of the Chhota Nagpur plateau. As the title says, it is about a girl called Chumki who discovers a pangolin and the adventure that then follows (not to worry, no spoiler alert here!). The main story is about the Indian pangolin being endangered, and how poachers are greedily destroying the few animals still left. Obviously, the young girl and her younger brother are the heroes of the tale, which has satisfying drama, action, suspense, fear, courage, detective work—spying on evil villains, climbing trees and sleeping in them, making and shooting fire arrows, a theft, a fire, police having to rush in….and more prosaically, siblings squabbling and helping parents with household chores. The sort of story a child would love to read. Set in India, with the persona given very general names so anyone across the country can identify with it and learn from it. (For example, I did not know much about the Indian pangolin, which is found across the country, but now read up about it.)
By setting it in 2020, Biswas has made the story very topical. She has cleverly brought in several themes by gently weaving them into the story. Parents or grandparents reading the story with young children can branch off into any of these tangents and have a satisfying discussion with the young ones.