Nina is an unlikely supergirl, undersized, serious and shy. But she is gifted with an amazing secret superpower—‘She could look into people’s hearts and see if they were nice or nasty.’ Kind and cheerful people give out yellow and silver rays, while angry or evil people are surrounded with red or purple clouds.
When Maya is made a class cup-board monitor, she has to fiercely guard the shiny little key to the class cupboard. For it contains ‘stacks of craft paper in pink and green… baskets of broken crayons… coloured pencils and blue notebooks… and a giant bottle of gum. It was the tallest, biggest, bluest bottle of gum Maya had ever seen.
This book is about a soldier who comes from Yarkhand across the Himalaya mountains, near Cheena Desha. He goes to a house in another village near Mathura. He meets some people called Ambika, Somadevi, Govinda and Nagadeva. He starts making strange sounds. Ambika recognizes some words of Prakrit. Ambika’s father Nagadeva, a blacksmith, understands what he is saying. He was saying that his horse had tumbled and lost a shoe.
The main character in this story is a monk called Xuan Zang. He is from Cheena Desha. The other characters are Valli, her brother Mahindra and their parents. They live in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. One day Valli was helping her mother with the housework when her brother Mahendra came. He said Appa asked him to take their coconuts to the market place. He said someone he knows will sell them for him. ‘Do you want to come?’ asked her brother. She agreed.
The Unkown Indians is not about individual people or events, but about specific groups of people in Indian history. The chapters are: A Charioteer’s Song: Minstrels and Storytellers; The Eternal Weave of Life: Weavers, Potters, Ironsmiths and Carvers; A Delicious Platter of Joy: Farmers and Cooks; and Saying it with Verse and Song: Rebel Poets. Here the narrative explores the contributions of groups, their traditions, cultures and beliefs. For instance, the first chapter introduces us not just to the class of storytellers, but also to relevant associated topics such as literature like the Mahabharata and the myth of Ganesha as its author.
Battles and Warriors looks at five pivotal battles and wars through Indian history. It would appeal to any child interested in the more violent aspects of history (almost all boys!), and is a fascinating introduction to the world of warfare, weaponry and associated crafts. The five chapters are: The Battle by the Jhelum: Alexander vs Porus; The Battle at Kalinga: Ashoka vs the Kingdom of Kalinga; A Battle on the High Seas: Rajendra Chola vs the Kingdom of Srivijaya; The First Battle at Panipat: Babur vs Ibrahim Lodi; A Mango Grove in Palashi: Siraj-ud-Daula vs the East India Company