Once upon a time Sonabai built a house, far, far away in the remote Puhphutara village of Madhya Pradesh’s Sarguja district. She lived with her husband, Holi Ram and their young son, Babu (Daroga Ram). Holi Ram spent most of the day working in the paddy fields; no one came to visit Sonabai nor did she go out. She was virtually alone, until one day, near the well, she saw some ‘squishy clay’.
Did you know that a Dodo tastes absolutely horrible? I didn’t, until I read this hilarious, racy, a-thrill-a-minute careening adventure of three agents of the Animal Intelligence Agency. The eye catching cover by Priya Kuriyan shows you an impossibly cute Dodo, three agents in the line of fire against telltale skylines, along with a firm declaration: SAVE THE ANIMALS. SAVE THE WORLD!
Pterodactyl’s Egg by Annie Besant is a book about a Pterodactyl egg which Sam discovers on the playground and takes home. Little does he expect it to hatch, and what follows is not for the faint hearted!
The world, as we see every day, is getting increasingly complex. In addition to the decades long concerns over armament race, climate change and diplomatic mistrust, reign of anarchy in the name of religion in certain parts of the globe has marked the recent period.
Twelve-year-old Sarojini goes to Ambedkar School in Bengaluru. Her feisty Amma works as a maid and cares about her daughter’s education deeply. Sarojini is fine with the school and its inadequacies till her best friend, Amir, moves away from their area into a better one and starts going to Greenhill, a posh private school. Things are not the same between them any more, Sarojini feels. And so, she decides that she must go to Greenhill too. Or bring back Amir to Ambedkar School.
The Panchatantra is a testimony to the rich tradition of the oral story telling culture of the subcontinent. Handed down over centuries, kids over generations have been brought up on a wide variety of tales from it, with each story underpinned by a moral message. Animal characters are central to the narrative, further enhancing the appeal of these stories to young minds.