Khyrunnisa A. Illustrations by Meenakshi Iyer

Filled with word plays, a bit of silliness and a lot of fun, The Crocodile Who Ate Butter Chicken for Breakfast and Other Stories is a collection of short stories which centres around animals, and the people around them.


Reviewed by: Vishesh Unni Raghunathan
Jerry Pinto. Illustrations by Kripa. Hindi translation by Sandhya Gandhi Vakil

The Art Gallery on Princess Street is a historical biography of the world famous art Gallery of Modern art–Bombay’s Gallery Chemould. Earlier art was confined to traditional depiction of people, buildings and animals. The most famous genre of art was Mughal paintings or miniature painting.


Reviewed by: Indira Bagchi
Rick Riordan

Ten years ago, the famous children’s author Rick Riordan, of Percy Jackson fame, published The Lost Hero, the first book in his The Heroes of Olympus series. It was an instant hit. It caused a whole lot of young readers like me to fall in love with Greek and Roman mythology.


Reviewed by: Serena Shah
Anu-Chowdhury-Sorabjee. Illustrations by Kalyan Joshi. Translated from the original English by Madhu B. Joshi

The original story titled A Camel for Kelam (Guest Editor Shabnam Minwala) and its Hindi translation, as the Hindi title makes it clear, Kelam ko Chahiye Oont, is about an animal-lover, Pabuji who lives in Rajasthan, and his niece Kelam who also loved animals. But her heart is set on a camel.


Reviewed by: Chandra Chari
Sheela Preuitt and Prabha Ram. Illustrations by Ashok Rajagopalan

Can you taste with your toes? Or see with your ears? Or, at least, smell with your hair? No? Well, there are creatures around you that can!

Take a peek into an intriguing world to discover the different ways in which animals do things that are ‘normal’. And look out for the funny bits in the pictures!.


Reviewed by: Veena Zutshi
Nizrana Farook

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant is an extremely imaginative and captivating read. It has healthy doses of adventure, bravery, friendship, wilderness all thrown in. What attracted me to the book first was that the protagonist was a girl about my age.


Reviewed by: Kriti Kidambi
Mamta Naini. Illustrations by Sandhya Prabhat

A Saree for Ammi is a short, heartwarming story set in Kota, Rajasthan. It is a story of the humble existence of a weaver’s family and narrates how his two young daughters put their mother’s happiness over their own. It teaches the reader a little about making of a saree–from dyeing the threads to weaving.


Reviewed by: Rachana Mannar
Anonymous. Illustrations by Niharika Shenoy

Shaljam is an instance of a predictive tale as it constructs itself on a repetitive anticipated pattern. It is a Russian folk tale, often translated as ‘The Giant Turnip’, collected by Alexander Afanasyev. Such folk tales are also called cumulative tales or chain tales since they form a string of recurring verses.


Reviewed by: Sakshi Dogra
Story and illustrations by Indu Harikumar. Translated into Hindi by Dipali Shukla. Design by Kanak Shashi. Edited by Bharat Tripathi

Cut Piece Kumar, a bilingual e-book in English and Hindi by Indu Harikumar, is meant for pre-teenagers who generally love to try their hands at creative arts. The book is about a young boy Kumar who can turn junk into beautiful and useful things.


Reviewed by: Jaya Krishnamachari
Mohammad Sajid Khan. Illustrations by Saurabh Pandey

This is a story about the journey of a sprig from a neem tree. Separated from its tree and transported away by the wind, it recalls all that had been and fears what will become of it.


Reviewed by: -
Vinita Krishna. Illustrations by Shashi Shetye. Translated into Hindi by Vinatha Viswanathan

Pichki is happy to push her way out of the ground into the fresh air only to find that as she grows into a neem tree she is rejected again and again, as smelly, bitten by flies, mosquitoes, caterpillars and even birds. Hurt, she however finds redemption when her healing powers.


Reviewed by: -
Chatura Rao. Illustrations: Proiti Roy

Only Fools Go To School by Chatura Rao is based on a beautiful story that deals with the adventures of a little boy named Sambha, who is initially very reluctant to go to school. He feels that the school is for fools and hence spends most of his time outside.


Reviewed by: Rafia Reshi
Shyam Susheel. Illustrations by Shubham Lakhera. Design by Ishita Devnath Biswas. Edited by Seema

All the books reviewed below from Eklavya have easy concepts and plots, with simple sentences, easy for children in primary classes to read and understand. Illustrations are good and relate with the story. They capture the ambience of the different environs that the stories are set in.


Reviewed by: -
Saumyak Ghoshal. Illustrations by Proiti Roy

A child’s universe, where the bird and animal kingdom is as much a part of existence as the reassuring  presence of Mummy-Papa.

Author Saumyak Ghoshal has beautifully evoked Piku’s mental landscape populated by sparrows and squirrels, cats and lizards, moths and mosquitos.  The shadow-play of daylight and darkness impacts Piku, like any other child, at a deeper level.


Reviewed by: Rekha Bhimani
Adithi Rao. Illustrations by Krishna Bala Shenoi. Hindi translation by Rishi Mathur

Chuchu Manthu’s Jar of Toffees, which first appeared on Pratham Books’ digital platform ‘Story Weaver’, is a cute story with an intriguing title which will  at once attract children  and motivate them to pick up the book and  read it.


Reviewed by: Indira Bagchi
Rinchin. Illustrations by Vipul Verma

Stories that connect a child to mother-nature are precious indeed.The Goolar Flower is one such story-book.

Renchu a little rag-picker girl is set off in search of a mythical ‘flower’–Goolar,  by her elder sibling Pirku and her pal Saanish.


Reviewed by: Rekha Bhimani

2020

As an editor of Indian books for children and young adults…


Editorial
Shannon Messenger

In the lockdown, I read the entire Keeper of the Lost Cities series, written by Shannon Messenger.  There are eight books in total in the series. I was encouraged to read it by my dear friend
Shriya Kothari, and since we have similar tastes in books, I decided.


Reviewed by: Serena Shah
Nishith Mehta

Eklavya, as we all know, is a non-profit NGO engaged in the creation and dissemination of educational resources among children who need them most. In partnership with Parag, an initiative of Tata Trusts, they have been creating books suitable for use by children in India’s.


Reviewed by: -
Rinchin. Illustrations by Kanak Shashi. Translated from the original English by Sushil Joshi, Varsha and Shashi Sublok. Edited by Seema

The book under review consists of seven stories, based on rural backgrounds. The people’s struggle to save their small landholdings from the sharks from the urban areas form the basis of the stories. ‘Chudail ka Nashta’, ‘Me Mor Jamin Bachawat Hun.


Reviewed by: -
Kavita Tiwari, Kanak Shashi and Sajitha Nair. Illustrations by Kanak Shashi. Cover design by Bindu Joseph, Rahul and Bharat

Mera Khachchar Danda Hai is a collection of 40 poems and pictures by children, written over a period of thirty-four years  and published in various issues of Chakmak, a children’s magazine. One page in every issue has been devoted to children’s writings and illustrations, the column titled  ‘Mera Panna’.


Reviewed by: Aruna Patel Vajpeyi
Kamla Bhasin. Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan

‘Are all girls alike? Should all girls be alike? It would be boring if they were!’Satrangi Ladkiyaan/Satrangi Ladke, an illustrated flip (picture) book for young children, written by feminist activist, poet and author Kamla Bhasin and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, through its simple narrative.


Reviewed by: Rabani Garg
Samina Mishra

Samina Mishra’s Hina in Purani Dilli  takes the reader on a fantastic journey through the by-lanes of the old city of Delhi. The book weaves together, with a documentary lens, history, geography and sociology as it goes from Hina’s school housed in a medieval haveli.


Reviewed by: Bharati Jagannathan
Jerry Pinto. Illustrated by Maithili Joshi

Anya and her Baby Brother is a tiny book which narrates a story much heavier than it feels like. Anya is a young girl who is miffed with her mother because ever since her special younger brother came along, his needs have taken priority over her. But how do the readers know this? Because Anya is sharing.


Reviewed by: Jerry Pinto. Illustrated by Maithili Joshi

2020

It seemed a strange idea to begin with…


Editorial
Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Terry Denton

As I was leafing through the pages of this book, I was struck by how they reminded me of the fairy-tales I used to read as a child. The contents of this work are, of course, diametrically different from those of an ordinary fairy tale. Teeming with caricatures.


Reviewed by: Gulbahar Shah
Evan Purcell

This middle-grade novel on zombies is actually a fun read and is suitable for 8-12 year-olds. It is the second book in a series that stars Karma Tandin, Monster Hunter and is set in a village in Bhutan. Twelve-year-old Karma is ‘not the bravest or the smartest kid’ but has decided.


Reviewed by: Padma Baliga
Penny Chrimes

Fly is short for Blow-fly–the name given by her employer Black Bill when he got her as a baby from the workhouse. Born a maggot, and grown up into a dirty fly is what he tells her. Scrawny, spunky Fly lives up to her name as she shinnies up and down the chimneys Bill makes her clean to earn a living.


Reviewed by: Deepa Balsavar
Sudha Murty. Illustrations by Priyanka Pachpande

Lying on the terrace under the starry night sky, my lockdown companion recounted her childhood days in a small town of the then Andhra Pradesh. She was nostalgic about sleeping under the open sky listening to mythical tales told by her grandfather.


Reviewed by: Manika Kukreja
Anushka Ravishankar. Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan

Hey Diddle Diddle is classic Anushka Ravishankar, the whimsical literary nonsense approach that actually packs in a lot of sense. Think about it, it’s a story about a well-known nonsense nursery rhyme that comes true, well, almost. The cow may not have jumped over.


Reviewed by: Samina Mishra
Lubaina Bandukwala. Illustrated by Sonal Gupta

After taking over Instagram and Bookstagram and winning hearts everywhere, is it any wonder that cats have begun to dominate children’s books too?

They say the world is split between dog people and cat people, and currently, if you look at children’s books and the pets that feature in them.


Reviewed by: Padma Baliga
Ahmad Raza Ahmadi. Illustrations by Nahid Kazmi

All published by Jugnu Prakashan, an imprint of Takshashila Education Society, Bhopal

Children are often seen as insulated from the world’s worries and continue to live in a world of make-believe and fantasy. This world is far removed from life’s realities that can be harsh and damaging for the child. Print and electronic media developed.


Reviewed by: Toolika Wadhwa
Pramod Padwal and Umesh Kumar

I must admit that as a reader of adult Marathi books and as a translator I was really looking forward to reading children’s stories from Marathi literature. I was also wondering how the distinctive flavour of Marathi humour, turn of phrase, and cultural references would be communicated to a young Hindi reader.


Reviewed by: Sandhya Gandhi-Vakil
Nandita Basu

The Piano is an unusual book. A graphic novel that draws you in immediately, it tells the story of a young girl Meera who is alone and wants nothing more than a friend in her life. It begins with her writing a letter to God, asking for a friend. And then.


Reviewed by: Andaleeb Wajid
y Sanjeev Jaiswal ‘Sanjay’. Illustrations by Ankur Mitra

Sanjeev Jaiswal’s Red Sun Ke Alien is a science-fiction (sci-fi) mystery drama novella. Sci-fi is one of the popular genres of  literature whose content is imaginative, but based on science. It relies heavily on scientific facts, theories, and principles as support.


Reviewed by: Sanjeev Jaiswal ‘Sanjay’. Illustrations by Ankur Mitra
Harshikaa Udasi

This book was like revisiting my childhood and the boys’ all at once. The story is set in Deolali (Maharashtra) and echoes the memories of our childhood. The excitement of being in a new place, the thrill and apprehension of meeting new people and having to make new


Reviewed by: Tanu Shree Singh
Swapna Dutta

Shadows in the Snow is an intriguing book filled with a certain air of mystery, even though there is no suspense on the surface as such. The atmosphere of Darjeeling created by the author captures the essence of those hills perfectly. The descriptions of waterfalls.


Reviewed by: Ilika Trivedi
Kay S.

‘For most, school begins with crayons, satchels and tears. But for Ananya, it began with smiles and a lipstick.’

This delightful children’s novel recounting a young girl’s adventures in a private boarding school opens by describing the delight of its protagonist Ananya Patel.


Reviewed by: Rohini Rangachari
Tanu Shree Singh. Illustrations by Sandhya Prabhat

Here is a complete package of real life conflict, love and hope attractively coloured by gloom of darkness to sparkle of Light. The unusual title—Darkless–invokes curiosity because there is no such word in the dictionary, still it manages to convey a whole depth of meaning as the story completes.


Reviewed by: Ira Saxena
Manoj Das. Illustrations by Sisir Datta

‘Long, long ago there was a kingdom called the Golden Valley, nestling amidst evergreen forests.’ Manoj Das’s book opens in the manner the best fairy tales do–by evoking an idyllic sylvan world where ‘everyone lives happily’.  However, he says, even in Golden Valley,..


Reviewed by: Padma Baliga
Devika Rangachari

‘History tells us what people do. Historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.’ Jean M Auel

Queen of Earth is a gender bending narrative of a spunky queen, appropriate to our times.

Kalinga of the seventh century is a vast land ruled by two adversaries, the Somavamsha and the Bhaumakaras.

The fate of a young princess caught in their crossfire is expertly depicted by Devika Rangachari in Queen of Earth.


Reviewed by: Sumitra Kannan

A doption is not an alien concept to Indians…


Editorial
Varsha Seshan

Sisters at New Dawn by Varsha Seshan is a coming-of-age story of two sisters, Padma and Kannagi Shankar. Most of the action of the story takes place at New Dawn, a high school that is committed to fostering values of ‘honesty, integrity, justice’ in the students enrolled there.


Reviewed by: Sakshi Dogra
Aparna Karthikeyan. Illustrations by Sagar Kolwankar

A cardboard box appears on the beach, a wet wriggling cardboard box. What does it contain?

Woof! Adventures by the Sea narrates the life of Mumbai’s homeless dogs on the beach. A new puppy is discovered and helped by the pack of resident dogs and large-hearted humans, given a name and a sense of belonging.


Reviewed by: Shailaja Srinivasan
Sophia Khan. Illustrations by Arapaie Black

Some of South Asian literature’s most lauded works belong to the fascinating category of Sci-fi/Dystopian Fiction. It already existed even before its so-called definitions came to the forefront. Resurgence and increasing acclaim of western sci-fi fiction.


Reviewed by: Shuby Abidi
Satyajit Ray. Translated from the original Bengali by Satyajit Ray and Indrani Majumdar

Bengali Renaissance had contributed significantly to the literary works and the cultural resurgence in India between the nineteenth and twentieth century. Even before the movements like ‘Prakalpana’ and the Little Magazine Movement gained momentum in twentieth-century Bengal.


Reviewed by: Sabah Hussain
Shefali Jha and Rekharaj. Illustrations by Chinan and K.P. Rezi. Translated from the original English into Hindi by Swayam Prakash

Itihaas ki Atmayein is a collection of two stories from English into Hindi, namely, Badshah, Mera Dost (My Friend, The Emperor) by Shefali Jha and Pyaari Atmayein (Beloved Spirits), by Rekharaj. The former narrates the story of a young boy Adil who is disinterested in the subject history.


Reviewed by: Sakshi Dogra
Nayanika Mahtani

What is a solitary, hastily drawn line capable of? Could this line impact millions of lives, and, ultimately, generations to come?

Nayanika Mahtani’s Across The Line dwells on such a topic, and is inarguably my best fortuitous read in a long time. A tour-de-force in its own right.


Reviewed by: Shreyas Vadrewu
Anita Roy

Joseph Srinivas wakes up one day to find that things aren’t quite right. He hasn’t jumped through a closet door, nor got a special letter—he just happens to find himself in a strange new place. He is greeted by Mishi, a fellow transitioner who guides him through Gravepyres.


Reviewed by: Vishesh Unni Raghunathan
Perumal Murugan. Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan

Perumal Murugan is one of the foremost of Tamil writers today. Poonachi: Lost in the Forest is apparently extracted from a novel,  Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat, which I haven’t read, was short-listed for the JCB Prize for Literature.  I have no doubt that it.


Reviewed by: Bharati Jagannathan
Nabaneeta Dev Sen. Translated from Bangla by Deepankar Biswas Illustrations by Proiti Roy

As The Book Review went into press for its children’s issue in November last year, Nabaneeta Dev Sen lay dying, and breathed her last on November 7, 2019 after a prolonged battle with cancer. It was too late to include an obituary, but a children’s writer as.


Reviewed by: Nivedita Sen
Jane De Suza. Illustration by Akangksha Sarmah

If you are the kind of person who always finds herself in hot water without a clue as to how it happened, this is the book for you.

The story of Kabir, the Flyaway Boy, delves deeply into the heart of a child who cannot squeeze himself into the conventional mould. It explores the situation of an imaginative youngster who simply cannot live up.


Reviewed by: Deepa Agarwal
Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond is a gift that never stops giving. In his latest offering, a memoir titled A Song of India:  The Year I Went Away, Bond shares snippets of his life at age sixteen. Sixteen is an age of irrepressible excitement in anyone’s life. We are not quite children and not quite adult.


Reviewed by: Sucharita Sengupta
Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton is easily one of the most popular authors in English for children. Most known for her series such as The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, Malory Towers, The Faraway Tree, her books have enlivened the childhood of many. Though she wrote in the early- and mid-1900s.


Reviewed by: Vinatha Viswanathan
Jerry Pinto. Illustrated by Lavanya Naidu

My Daddy and the Well paints a restful landscape filled with the simple pleasures of childhood—a world that any reader can recognize and delight in. With his lips stained pink with the juice of kokum fruit, the child protagonist takes us through his various adventures while visiting…


Reviewed by: Gulbahar Shah
Aditya Karnik

Which is the tallest tree in the world? Which is the biggest garden in the world? Were peaches called Persian apples? These are just a few of the questions that can be answered by this book. From herbs and spices to forests, from gardens in deserts to gardens on cliffs.


Reviewed by: Aditya Karnik
Meghaa Gupta

Environment is a concern central to all mankind especially in recent times. Nature is the precondition for human life and survival. Given the central position it acquires in our lives, the book, Unearthed: An Environmental History of Independent India by Meghaa Gupta.


Reviewed by: Ektaa Jain Sethi
Aparna Jain. Art Director: Ayesha Broacha

The publication of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls in 2016 caused quite a stir in the children’s book industry and popularized the vogue of collective biographies written for children, a trend initiated by the  Rad Women series. Many jumped on the bandwagon and soon.


Reviewed by: Padma Baliga
Uma Raghuraman

My first thoughts while going through Uma Raghuraman’s cookbook was that I wish someone had written this when I was in school, or even while my own children were in school. My lunch box always, inevitably, held paranthas with some pickle sitting snug in the middle.


Reviewed by: Anjula Ray Chaudhury
Priya Narayanan. Illustrated by Satwik Gade

Among the various mathematicians that India has given birth to, the name of Srinivasa Ramanujan has to be in the forefront. In this attractive picture book, the author Priya Narayanan has tried to tackle the very complex thought process of a genius in terms that a child can relate to.


Reviewed by: Malaika Berry
Gayathri Ponvannan

A few weeks back I watched the movie Wonder and thought this book is the exact gift for a kid like Augie who is not only deeply interested but also understands astronomy. This book holds up its own place in the collection of books because it’s filled with pretty amazingly wonderful facts.


Reviewed by: Sajitha Nair
Chandan Deshmukh

I had a maths teacher who would often ask in a rhetorical fashion, when exasperated with the class, do you people want to be dunkeys in life? There would be a small section of the back benchers who would shout back ‘dunkeys sir’. The teacher knowing the offenders.


Reviewed by: Bharat Kidambi
Randall Munroe

How To is a self-declared book of ‘bad ideas…How To is a self-declared book of ‘bad ideas’, and quite a good one at that!  A perfect companion to the author’s previous volume (which answers absurd questions with ‘serious’ scientific answers), How To discusses, in its own words ‘absurd scientific advice for common real-world problems’.


Reviewed by: TCA Avni

Who doesn’t love Peppa Pig? Peppa with her little brother George, Mama and Papa, living on a hill, happy and rotund, playing in the mud and full of life lessons for children, neatly delivered in a few pages or reels of slick story-telling?

Well, I can tell you, legions of little fans around the world love Peppa to distraction.


Reviewed by: Rina Sen Goel
Ira Trivedi

There are many books written on various disciplines of yoga for adults, but very few books on yoga for kids. Om the Yoga Dog  is a good initiative by  Ira Trivedi to write such a book. Ira has wisely chosen dog and other animal characters to depict the yoga postures.


Reviewed by: Rama Mannar
Anu Gupta. Illustrations by Nursingh Sheikh, Bharat Jamra, Ankita Thakur

Eklavya is a Bhopal based non-profit NGO set up in 1982 which has worked with the Madhya Pradesh government to develop educational programmes for teaching school children science (inspired by the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program), social science and primary education.


Reviewed by: HAMARI MANSPESHIYAN
Anu Gupta. Translated from the Hindi by Venu Aindley

As a physician specializing in pediatric and adolescent endocrinology, i.e., hormonal disorders of children and adolescents, I am frequently appalled at the level of ignorance so many ‘educated’ adults have about their bodies, which not surprisingly affects the way.


Reviewed by: Anju Virmani
Ritu Vaishnav

Inside a Dark Box by Ritu Vaishnav is an honest, easy and heart-warming read to call out the strength available to each person who might be trapped in his/her dark box. The book makes a brilliant attempt to reach out to the readers through simple yet powerful monotone.


Reviewed by: Shalini Jayaswal Singh
Nandita Jayaraj and Ashima Freidog. Illustrations by Upasana Agarwal Designer: Devangana Dash

This book can be celebrated alongside the historic win of Nobel Chemistry Prize 2020 by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna. Extracted from the Feminist Science Media Project, TheLifeofScience.com, 31 Fantastic Adventures in Science: Women Scientists of India.


Reviewed by: Asfia Jamal
Stephen Hawking & Lucy Hawking

A compendium of write-ups related to the earth and the universe, compiled by Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, is most suitable for middle-school children and teenagers. The key authors and compilers are Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking.


Reviewed by: Manu Mehrotra and Ambika Mohan
Krishna Kumar

Worries about the reading habit in children steadily being on a decline in present times have been expressed by all those who interact and deal with them. Be it parents, teachers, counsellors, school librarians and psychologists, the refrain is the same.


Reviewed by: PADHNA, ZARA SOCHNA
Amneh Shaikh-Farooqui. Illustrations by Aziza Ahmad

On the eve of International Women’s Day, Aurat March movement in Pakistan sparked women’s voice throughout Pakistan to end violence and harassment against women and change the attitude towards the traditional patriarchal norms of society. The social, cultural.


Reviewed by: Azeemah Saleem
Subhadra Sen Gupta

A feather in the cap of Puffin Books adding to the impressive list of books written by Subhadra Sen Gupta for children. This book is an ‘academic excursion’ for all school enrolled students and beyond. The magnum opus called the Constitution of India.


Reviewed by: Shubhra Seth
Shashi Tharoor

Tharoorosaurus! as the name suggests, is a mix between a thesaurus and dictionary, cleverly playing on its author Shashi Tharoor’s last name. Tharoor, a member of India’s Parliament and a prolific writer, is known for his expansive vocabulary, which makes.


Reviewed by: Yuvraj Shah
Sandhya Rao. Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan

Zakir Hussain can be considered one of India’s most famous tabla players. In this simple yet interesting book, the author Sandhya Rao uncovers the life of Zakir as a young boy and his journey towards becoming a music maestro. It shows his love for music from.


Reviewed by: Malaika Berry

Travel accounts fascinate because they hold a mirror to society. The intrepid traveller intrigues–Why take the trouble? What are the returns? The well-known Hindi author Priyamvad hints in his brief introduction that the reason could be some inner urge, the ability.


Editorial
Dan Brown. Illustrated by Susan Batori

Rarely has a book lifted one’s spirits so completely (especially in these bleak times) as did Dan Brown’s recently published children’s picture book Wild Symphony. After reading the book, I wanted to happily announce, like the narratorial voice in the ‘Bouncing Kangaroo’ section.


Reviewed by: Simi Malhotra
Anita Bhatnagar Jain. Illustrations by Partha Sengupta

While choosing a book to review, the title of this one quickly grabbed my attention. Having been to the Kumbh Mela in Ujjain a few years back, I was curious to know how this picture-book had portrayed the largest of the religious gatherings in India.


Reviewed by: Deepali Shukla
Sudha G. Tilak

Let’s start with the captivating cover. Designed and illustrated by Sharanya Kunnath in a rather unusual blue and red combination, the cover displays the loveliness of Indian temple art.

The author, Sudha G. Tilak, says that temple visits were a huge part of her summer vacations and those visits taught her to enjoy the stories and art forms of India, both of which she has described in her book.


Reviewed by: Neera Jain
Subhadra Sen Gupta

This has never happened to me before. I got two books to review and both were about the perpetual state of warfare between the devas and asuras that is the popular template for so many stories of Hindu mythology. It has always reminded me of the Indo-Pak.


Reviewed by: Subhadra Sen Gupta
Somadeva. Adapted and Retold by Rohini Chowdhury

The Kathasaritsagara, which was compiled by the Brahmin Somadeva in Sanskrit in 11th century Kashmir, remains one of the great compendia of the world’s stories, drawing as it does from several lost and fragmentary extant texts from earlier centuries. Scholars.


Reviewed by: Arshia Sattar
Namita Ranganathan

This is a comprehensive and discursive book on child development, adolescence included. Comprising sixteen chapters and two essays it presents a holistic picture, bringing in perspectives from multiple disciplines like child development, psychology, sociology and education.


Reviewed by: Geeta Menon
Jyoti Raina

It is a paradox that when the first stage of the coveted national goal of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) is almost achieved (The Net Enrolment Ratio in the primary stage of elementary education was 99.6% as per the Government’s DISE data for the year 2010-11).


Reviewed by: Arvind Kumar Mishra

After 34 long years since the last National Policy on Education…


Editorial

Covid has hit India badly and the pain is likely…


Editorial

We at The Book Review have always prided ourselves…


Editorial

Contributors


Editorial