Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Noon Chai and a Story is a slim little book, beautifully illustrated which gently draws the young reader’s attention to what books mean to those who are deprived of them. But while the story is about books it is also about the world in which the young protagonist lives with her parents, her sister and her beloved grandmother, Deidi. Looking at life through the eyes of a little girl living in the remote area of Gurez, the book gives an authentic representation of life in this beautiful but little known corner of India…

Archimedes and the Slice of Bread—the title piques your interest and you dive right in. The book is about a father who is trying hard to invent something, and his daughter Eureka and her cat Archimedes. Eureka feels sorry for Papa, who has never invented anything in his life, except for trying to invent a square soap bubble that burst before he was successful. The only thing he has invented is a strange name for her. Archimedes loved to lick butter off Eureka’s slice of bread. Once when Archimedes tries to lick the caviar off Papa’s slice of bread, he lifts him and throws him away from the table…

Depression, there I said it too….! Was that such a big deal…? Wasn’t that difficult, was it? No! It’s just a word but when you say it out loud, it seems like half the battle is won; when you acknowledge it, its existence, you know, it’s no longer an unbeatable monster that you thought it was. It’s only a monster if it is hidden, if it is out of sight. And perhaps if you push further and make an honest attempt to understand it, preferably without mocking it, then you realize that this so called ‘monster’ is just a burden many of the unfortunates carry, a monster that can be destroyed.

How do you describe the importance of fishing so as to not overfishing the rivers and seas? In communities living in wary coexistence with dangerous and deadly animals, whose livelihoods depend on harvesting forest produce, how do you convey the importance of ecological preservation? How do you impress upon the need for sustainable logging practices and forest management, to prevent the denudation of forests on the mountains from where rivers flow? In short, how do you convey the actionable ideas of science such that they dictate the behaviours of the community and the individual?…

Generation Y, commonly referred to as millennials, are those who were born between the early 80s and the early 2000s. This generation is typically highly aspirational, and tends to be self-absorbed. Often when the realization dawns, early in life, that reality is nowhere near their expectation, it leaves them disillusioned. Partly the fault lies, according to the author, with the parents of this generation, as they tend to raise their kids making them believe that they are special, by constantly reiterating that the world has unlimited opportunities for them…

Simple and neat. The book is more like a guided journal with questionnaires, templates and exercises to think through interwoven with the theory. The entire content is spread across five sections. Each section covers basic concepts of business and economics in a succinct manner that can be grasped by not only pre-university students but also high school students having no orientation to the subject.The first four sections are all about setting up a business—idea to execution. These sections include a good mix of brief real-life startup stories like Wildcraft, BookMyShow, etc., though juicy details are missed here. Running over a little on what goes wrong for start-ups and why without affecting the experience of positivity of the book could have been beneficial…

An orchid that grows underground, wasps that come to attack pests on a plant in response to a chemical signal sent by the plant, glue from the juice of flowers, a poisonous seed used to weigh precious metals…there’s plenty of fascinating stuff happening in the plant world. Amreen Toor has a captivating lineup of facts in 501 Facts Factory. The book, all 170 pages of it, is packed with interesting information…

They say never judge a book by its cover. Wise words but the title on the cover of a book definitely gives the reader a good reason to give it a second look…or not! And this title grabs attention immediately! The strength of this book is the choice of the topic. It is extremely relevant for people spanning a wide age group. It speaks of microbes coexisting with us, a fact that is certainly not new but it describes the width and depth of our interaction with microbes which is not so well known to most people, barring the experts…

Maps are very important tools of education. What is a map?The old idea of maps focuses on its utility, to locate places and determine directions. Political history has widened this core utility to include in it a powerful socializing devise, to create territorial nation states in the young minds. Education submits to the mysterious power of the boundaries that maps display. Borders tend to make the earth less important than the inhabitants of each society and nation. Nature’s crisis and the state of tension between human relations, and nature and human relation with other humans become unreceptive to education, including the best kind of education…

Through the two Vikram-Aditya stories, Deepak Dalal showed me a glimpse of the beauty of Snow Leopards of the Himalayas and the coral reefs near south Indian Islands. Vikram and Aditya are two adolescent friends, who find themselves in adventures dealing with men involved in illegal work during their trips away from their school in the Nilgiris. The travel adventure does more than just telling suspenseful tales. Though the books are committed to a nail-biting plot to hand over the criminal mastermind and bring them to justice, in doing so the author makes use of descriptions of the locations that takes the reader through the geography of the places…

The Antarctic Mission is the 13th book in the series Aditi Adventures by the well known feminist, fabulist and writer Suniti Namjoshi. Aditi is a young girl (inspired by Namjoshi’s niece—her namesake) who sets out on the most amazing adventures across the world along with her three companions: a monkey, an ant, an elephant named Beautiful and sundry dragons. Originally published as a twelve book series dealing with diverse themes, the stories blend adventure and fantasy, the tech savvy world of today and the magical…

We live in a world that is messy and complicated. Technology has escalated it. Are children untouched by it? Hardly. Their sense of good and bad, right and wrong are no longer simple. Ask a child if good begets good, and in all probability you will hear a ‘no’! How Earth Got its Beauty by Sudha Murty for children is a story that is from another time—innocent and uncomplicated…

Climatic change has become a global concern over the last few decades. It refers to the change in the environmental conditions of the earth. This happens due to many internal and external factors. Isn’t it interesting that knowingly or unknowingly we observe various things such as trees, vehicles, garbage and so much more? What are all these things? They’re nothing but a part of our environment. Bijal Vachharajani discusses climate through a series of letters from the animal kingdom and has interestingly and skilfully entwined two valuable learnings…

Just like the tales and legends of Iliad give a magical patina to the mystique of Greek of yore, this slim book And That is Why with enchanting myths and legends from Manipur, recreates a world that lends a strange yet acceptable dimension to our humdrum lives.Well-known author and cultural maestro, L Somi Roy, may have retold the tales for a young audience, but such are the re-tellings that an adult is forgiven if charmed by them. As a cultural, literary and sport celebrity who is native to Manipur, Mr Roy has picked a collection of legends that tickles one’s imagination and, at least to this writer, encourages lateral thinking…

Anastasia Damani’s illustrated books are a pleasure to read. The world is becoming a smaller place every day. You can go off to London or to Europe for a holiday and you can also visit lesser known exotic places. But we have so many novel and beautiful things and people all around us and it is an amazing experience to learn about some of them. India was ruled by the British for a long time and then in 1947 they left the country. But some of them, especially those belonging to mixed families, that is both Indian and British, loved the vibrant and warm culture of our country and so they stayed on…

All children are born imaginative, some perhaps more than others. And imagination fosters creativity. Unfortunately, their curiosity to discover the world around often gets jaded over the years. What experience ignites a child’s imagination? What helps the child pursue the ideas formed during the growing years? As a child, Einstein was fascinated by a magnetic compass gifted by his father to play with, wondering why its needle always pointed to the north! Later, in his teens, he would marvel how it would be like if he travelled so fast as to catch up with a beam of light!..

This is the story of a determined, stubborn and spirited girl who has become famous as Teejan Bai. She has been heaped with honours, but her journey from the humble Bhil village of Ganiyari (Chattisgarh) to the world stage was a struggle. Teejan’s birth was not welcome in her impoverished family, and her enthusiasm for playing kabaddi and climbing trees met the disapproval of her disciplinarian mother. She was mesmerized by her grandfather Brijlal’s performance of Pandvani—narration of tales from Mahabharata and wanted to sing also…

Ribhu’s Adventure on Earth is a fun story where a fun-loving air-spirit Ribhu, a child of the Gandharvas of Indian mythology and student of Gandharva Vasusen gets cursed by sage Durvasa for disturbing his meditation. With his dholak as the only companion he is cursed to go down to the earth as a demon rakshasa in Dandaka.The story revolves around Ribhu’s adventures in his new life with his dholak as a friendly reminder of the past, where he meets demons like Tadaka rakshasi, Mareecha (Tadaka’s son) and observes how Rama frees them from their curses. Ribhu then moves away to Mithila where he meets Ahalya (the wife of Rishi Gautama) turned into a rock and waiting for the young Prince Rama to come there and touch her with his foot to free her from the curse…

The book is mainly based on the story of Ramayana. But it differs from most of the books narrating the story of Ramayana in the sense that other books have Rama, Lakshmana and others as the main characters, but this book gives you a new perspective on the journey of Rama. It depicts the contribution of the monkeys in Rama’s Ayana i.e., Rama’s journey. Whether it was the search for Sita or the construction of a bridge over the sea to reach Lanka, or defeating the greats of Ravana’s army, or bringing the Sanjeevani herb to save Lakshmana, all this would not have been possible without the cooperation of the monkeys…

The enchantment of the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is soul stirring and timeless, capable of reviving the thrill of the tale with every fresh presentation of the drama down to the current times and newer audiences. So many creative attempts have been made, using a variety of formats, styles and texts to analyse the story and the characters through the years in novel interpretations but the main source still remains a fountain of joy for authors to re-create the original tale. Salutations to Vyasa for painting such a rich canvas of the Mahabharata from where writers can never tire of highlighting every single square inch of the grand picture, time and again…