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If you know a dog-person, or a human owned entirely by dogs, this is a book you want to share with them straight away. While I was reading Jonathan Unleashed by the luminously witty Meg Rosoff, that peerless writer about children, young folk and dogs, I was casting sidelong glances at my sons, hoping that by some magic, they’d transform into dogs, just for a week or so. Just for a bit, I should love to be in the company of canines like the super-intelligent ‘city’ collie Dante and the sweet-natured spaniel Sissy who light up this book with the ‘Byzantine quality of their inner lives’.

We meet our hero Subroto Bandhopadhyay, Stoob to you and I, on a holiday in Thailand with his friend Ishani and their families. While we expect the sun, sand and surf to keep the twelve-year-old occupied, it isn’t turning out to be as relaxing as Stoob would like—he has an embarrassing story to narrate, an incident, which involves a girl, Mala Kapoor. Stoob is turning out to be a fun and engaging series. Stoob, Ishani and Rehan are such well chalked out characters, with lots in common, yet plenty to set apart one from another. Rehan is your typical nerd who googles everything and seems to know way lot more than what everyone else around does.

The stories in Gumrah come from a TV show of the same name hosted by Channel V, owned by Star India. The foreword by Chetan Bhagat seeks to provide a context for the narratives. It also outlines the purpose of the book, which is to warn of the dangers of the teenage years, and therefore the importance of being aware and responsible. The first story, ‘Soulmate’, is the narrative of sibling rivalry turned tragic. A case of unrequited teenage love, insecurity at home and in school, and subconscious resentment of a younger sibling, lead a girl to murder her younger sister in a fit of rage.

Have you ever had a dream that’s left you amazed, baffled, terrified, elated, confused, sweating, or feeling any other adjective in abundance?! The dream world is a truly happening place. Funny dreams, weird dreams, scary dreams, lucid dreams, sad dreams, lonely dreams, sometimes even lifechanging dreams. If you’ve ever had the experience of waking up from an incredibly vivid dream, or one that is only hazily etched in memory, you know partly what this book is about! Shobha—the epicenter of Sandhya Rao’s Dream Writer—is a dreamy girl. She sees many dreams, but…

There are few things as mysterious as the idea of Fate. In his collection of short stories, The Line Reader, Agni Tripathi appears to pay tribute to this idea. The stories are steeped in irony and present characters from different walks of life and their unique relationship with fate— we have those who try to predict it, those who could have prevented it, and those who couldn’t. They bring us a series of ‘what if ’s and ‘if only’s. The stories bring forth the idea of unpredictability by introducing unexpected endings.

What better way to impart an environmental mes sage to children but not sound too preachy than by recounting an imaginative tale of an alien visiting Earth in search of a magical substance to save his own planet! Jamuna Rangachari creatively weaves a story around a dark cloud endangering Planet Zylake to awaken the conscience of readers to the environmental dangers faced by Earth. She is an author of children’s books and a software professional who espouses positive values, spirituality and holistic living and is associated with the Life Positive magazine, a part of the Life Positive Foundation that focuses on promoting and disseminating holistic information, techniques and wisdom to the general public.