Mandira Shah

The story takes off on the school terrace with a young student manipulating a surveillance drone that captures a deadly secret of missing children and a shadowy figure known only as the Dragon. Two teenagers, April, a resident of Imphal and Shalini from the mainland living there with her father, an army man, jump into the plot to unravel the secrets running below the surface of this land, confronted at the onset, with the disappearance of a bright young boy handling the drone


Reviewed by: Ira Saxena
Gayathri Ponvannan

A story imagined in the backdrop of World War II and India’s Freedom Struggle. The protagonist of the story is a 16-year-old girl, Kayal. The story unravels as she maintains a journal to record her journey from her orthodox home in Madras to the war camp of Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj in Burma and beyond. It is all about how the life of this school-going teen, with a patriotic fervour, takes a sudden turn when she leaves the traditional home of her parents who are all set to marry her off to 18-year-old Shiva.


Reviewed by: Shubhangi Pandit
Radhakrishnan Pillai

Chatur Chanakya vs the World Wide Web is the sequel to Radhakrishnan Pillai’s first delightful book, Chatur Chanakya and the Himalayan Problem, which introduced readers to the Super Six gang of Ganesh colony including Chanakya, the pale, slender and rather unlikely hero.


Reviewed by: Ranjana Kaul
Bhakti Mathur

Amma, Take Me to the Taj Mahal is the latest addition to the ‘Amma Take Me’ series written by Bhakti Mathur. In the earlier books Amma took her two sons to the Golden Temple, Tirupathi, Dargah of Salim Chishti and Shirdi. As the author, Bhakti Mathur, says in her introductory note, ‘The series is an attempt to introduce children to the places of historical interest and different faiths in India


Reviewed by: Neera Jain
Chitra Soundar

Friendship isn’t dictated by logic or form—it just is.’  This powerful quote encapsulates the conundrum in Chitra Soundar’s delightful and adventurous tale that is inspired by her own childhood in Chennai and a young girl’s anxiety of moving countries and searching for a new friend.


Reviewed by: Rohini Rangachari Karnik
Amit Majmudar

Heroes the Colour of Dust by Amit Majmudar is a book on the Dandi Salt March told from the perspective of sparrows. The story follows Blatherquill, Thunderpuff, and other sparrows, as they stop a couple of Britishers (and a mutt) from derailing the march.


Reviewed by: Vishesh Unni Raghunathan