At first glance, the book resembles those old classics retold, with its dark green cover and title in a narrow black box. But the dimensions and the picture on the cover make it different. The tagline suggests it is part of a series. This bodes well because we don’t have too many good series for young readers.
Duckbill Books’ Not Our War (NOW) series is just what Indian young adults need. The series, in the publisher’s words, ‘deals with children growing up in times of conflict—powerless, vulnerable, and yet, against all odds, brave and hopeful of a better future’.
‘My name is August. I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.’ A usual middle school life has fights, punches, suspensions, bullying, name-calling, dating, pranks—but when August Pullman a boy who loves ice cream and plays Xbox like any other kid goes to school, we see the true colours of children.
Writing about the future can be fraught. It is deceptively simple to conjure up futuristic fantasies, simply linear progressions of events today. But there is a very real danger of over-reaching—of creating scenarios that just become unbelievable. Ruchi Banerjee seems to have reined in her imagination at just the right time in her novel Infinitude.
Why do crocodiles have stones in their bellies? Do you know how long they have been around on earth? Here’s a hint—an ancestor of the crocodile was so large that it ate dinosaurs! A gross but effective method of self-defence—a turkey vulture defends itself by bringing forth foul smelling vomit of a semi-digested meal.
Bad Influence is one of those books that you don’t have much faith in, when you pick it up—but once you’ve gotten past the first five pages, suddenly you’re invested in the characters and the story to such a point that you desperately need to find out what happens next, even if you have a fair idea. And that, in truth, is the book’s real success.
If you like your young adult novel sepia-tinted, then this book is for you. The beautifully detailed cover illustration of lilies in shades of grey, beige and the cleverest touch of red captures the mood of the book. It is a sombre account of twelve year old Evelyn’s journey from Argentina to war-torn England.
The Misfits by Kate Darnton is the heartwarming story of eleven-year-old Chloe and her new life in New Delhi.
Exotic and enigmatic, yet crowded and dirty, India is indeed a daunting challenge for the American family that has moved in here. ‘Everything in Delhi was the opposite of Boston—the heat and the smells and the noises and the colours and the tastes. Everything was totally different.’
Set around the time of World War II, young Tally Hamilton lives with her father and two aunts in a slightly shabby house in a slightly shabby street in England. The threat of war is in the air, and when an offer comes for a full scholarship for Tally in a private boarding school from a patient, Dr Hamilton gratefully seizes it, seeing it as an opportunity to see his daughter to safety in the countryside.
Roddy Doyle’s Brilliant is less than a brilliant book. Ray and Gloria live with their parents and granny in the outskirts of Dublin. Their uncle Ben arrives one day to live with them (for a while, their mother adds). The kids learn that Uncle Ben is in financial trouble and cannot continue to live in his house even though the house is his—the banks won’t let him use it.
The story is set in 1910, where young and orphaned Maia has to voyage all the way to the Amazon from England, to go live with her only family, the Carters. The gruesome depictions of Amazon, of man eating alligators, blood thirsty piranhas and yellow fever inducing mosquitoes by her boarding school peers doesn’t deter Maia from fantasizing…
The Star of Kazan won the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Silver Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Iva Ibbotson’s tribute to the place where she was born—Vienna, makes the first part of the book magical. We are taken through the streets of Vienna, introduced to its people and watch the emperor’s Lipizzaner horses perform.
Selected Stories By Charles Dickens contains eight of the master’s stories. Primarily known for his novels dealing with the industrial revolution and child labour, this collection reveals what range Dickens had and reminds one (after reading and forgetting his prose in school/college) what a terrific storyteller he is.
Author Shalini Srinivasan certainly has a weird and wonderful imagination. It’s almost as though mere words cannot do justice to the way her thoughts spiral out, creating bizarre characters and new worlds, fabulous realms and fables that might rival the ones found in our own Upanishads.
If you started reading this book without taking a look at its cover-page, you may think it’s been written by Roald Dahl. Mean and stupid parents, adults who are dumb as soup, grown-ups who are outrageously wicked, a granny who is wise and can stop them all (remember The Witches?)—they are all here.
In a world where the Greek gods are real, the legends about them must be real as well. And what were the Greek gods best known for? Two things: defeating the Titans, and coming down to Earth to have demigod children. Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series sees an old favourite hero—Percy Jackson, the demigod son of Poseidon…
There is no ‘handheld device’ that a child needs, other than a book. If you agree with this conservative claim, then here you may read a review of two such wonderful ‘devices’: The Merry Adventures of Harshabardhan and Gobardhan by Shibram Chakraborty, and Deki: The Adventures of a Dog and A Boy in Tibet, by George Schaller.
It’s a very eye catching cover—a purple and gold tiger with a huge lolling, shocking pink tongue springing out of a forest. Then the blurb on the back cover tells you it is a story set in the mangroves of the Sundarbans and you know you are in for a treat. Karthika Nair has set the story of her picture book in a very unusual location—the ‘beautiful forest’ of the Sundarbans…
I cried. I cried a lot.’ says Saurav Mohapatra in the introduction, talking about his reaction as a young child, when he first heard the story of Abhimanyu. Most of those who grew up on the Mahabharata would identify with the experience. Abhimanyu is the son of Arjuna, one of the five Pandava princes; and the nephew of Lord Krishna. He is also perhaps the most poignant figure of the Kurukshetra war…
Adolescence is a stage of life termed as ‘full of storm and stress’ by many. The ‘negativities’ that are linked with adolescence very easily range from conflict with adults, mood swings, mood intensity, irritability, criminal tendencies, risk-taking behaviour, attraction towards and seeking of thrills, and so on. No doubt this phase of life has been studied by psychologists for many decades.
There is such a disconnect between the books and toys Indian children read and play with, and the realities of Indian life. Even the materials are alien. Instead of clay, cane, wood and papier-mache, everything is plastic or moulded polymer, and the virtual world of the ubiquitous laptop or tablet rules all. The world of Harry Potter or Superman is more familiar than an Indian village to an average urban kid.
Visit to the Bhil Carnival is a charming book created by Subhash Amaliyar, a Bhil artist from Jhabua in central India.
How can a Pigeon be a War Hero manages to present what is otherwise a grim and complex historical period in a light and amusing manner. The book has a multitude of pictures and diagrams and charts which make the book less about reading and more a video presentation for young children.
In these lines Owen captures the monumental losses of a generation. In the four years of the War about 10,300 people died everyday for four and half years. Yet many who lived to tell their tales made places like Somme, Flanders and Gallipoli enter the domain of popular mythology across the world. There are no veterans from the War alive today…
History is not a hot favourite with students. Most look upon it as a monstrous subject that is not just voluminous but also irrelevant. Why bother memorizing names of people long dead and their complicated, boring histories? But history can become interesting if you pick up the right book.
Who are the Baigas? The author explains that the Baigas are Gonds, a tribal community that inhabits the forest areas of central India. Like the author, I have spent some years in the area around Raipur, now part of Chattisgarh, as well as in the forested areas of Jharkhand.
The simultaneous publication of two anthologies of the works of Ruskin Bond, Uncles, Aunts and Elephants, and The Very Best of Ruskin Bond is ample proof that he continues to be one of the best loved and admired writers today in India. While a few stories and essays, such as ‘Wilson’s Bridge’ and ‘Bhabiji’s House’ appear in both the selections, the first published by Puffin, is evidently meant for a younger audience.
Books for children cater to a range of interests, with stories of worlds distant and familiar, often with a mixture of fable, myth and the modern world.
Have you ever pondered the pleasure and excitement of solving a riddle? Would you like to explore a book on riddles? Riddles for the English Classroom is a unique collection of fifty-seven riddles by Dr. Phool Singh Narvaria, who is an experienced teacher educator from Gwalior, India and has documented numerous folk forms to use in the language classroom.
You plunge directly into the story, which starts with the birth of a girl called Sundari and an elephant called Lakshmi—at about the same time, and at the back of the palace where the elephant stables are. Sundari’s father is a mahout and so, naturally, she and Lakshmi practically grow up together, Sundari marking the milestones of a human being, and Lakshmi, those of an elephant.
The Adventures of Stoob is a breezy read that you probably will finish reading in one sitting.
A children’s book on all the books that children can read! Preeti Singh’s Great Books For Children is a compilation of books (including Indian ones) that might be of interest to independent young readers and parents or elder siblings of very small children who may want to introduce books to them.