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The Waiting may seem like a simple book, but it is pretty complex with multiple stories surrounding the main character, Anit, and his friends–Bimal, Chandan, and Deeksha, also known as the ABCD gang in the book.Dipavali Sen talks about bullying/ragging and connects it with mythology, magic, historical research, scientific experiment, contemporary attitudes, and mystical practices.The Waiting is an adventure book. It starts with Anit’s story of shifting to a new house, a new school, and how he is bullied there as a new boy. Even though he is irritated and frustrated, he does not tell his parents about the ordeals of the ragging he faced. Being an the only child, he understands all the hardships his parents had gone through to buy a house for themselves…

Hawa Mithai by the renowned Hindi poet is a collection of essays on the elements, water, light, air, as also on sound, the earth, sky, fire, the seasons. E.g., water is derived from clouds, rains and rivers and light are derived from the Sun, Moon and the stars. Humans, birds, animals and even plants and trees, all depend on the elements. We derive abundance of pleasure from them but when we make them angry, they bring misery to us by causing floods, earthquakes, thunderstorms, etc.The author has described these elements in colourful details. There are three essays on potatoes, cycle and green chillies to add spice to the volume. The illustrations are attractive, Kulkarni has done a very good job…

The ‘children’s books’ I grew up with were essentially preachy adult stuff parading as stories for children. It is a delight, therefore, to see these six books which try and see the world through the eyes of a child.Sher ki Neend (The Lion’s Sleep) written and illustrated by Manica K Musil presents a lion who is not a fierce hunter out to kill and frighten children. Rather, it is a lion that desperately needs a snooze but cannot sleep because birds and monkeys and insects don’t let him. Finally a bird leads him up a hill and he falls asleep: a lovely metaphor for a child’s desire to guide grownups. While the tale alone is sure to engage any six-seven year old, the fabulous illustrations, created with a variety of fabrics, threads, rope and wool, would compel even older people to turn its pages…

Chaman Lal Ke Pyjame is an interesting collection of six stories written by Anil Singh for children aged 8 and above. All the stories are set in Umariya, a district in Madhya Pradesh. The language is colloquial bringing back memories of a Madhya Pradesh I grew up in. The Hindi spoken in small towns of many Hindi-speaking States is something one does not generally hear in Metropolitan cities. It is very quaint and only people living in those parts may be familiar with some of the words that I came across in these stories…

Babies In My Heart is a simply-written story about the concept of family, and the types of families found in today’s world. The story begins by introducing the reader to a standard nuclear family with biological father, mother and their biological children—the archetypical Hum do hamare do; and then goes on to introduce families with twins, triplets and quadruplets. Then come same-sex families with two mothers or two fathers. Here, the concept of adoption is brought up by differentiating between tummy mummy and heart family. Then the concept of a single parent (actually a single woman) family is introduced…

Gulab, the daughter of a manual scavenger—is mocked at by her class mates as ‘stinky Gulab’, not because she is filthy but because of her father’s profession which involves cleansing of clogged gutters.So, on science day in school Gulab takes the first bold step of showcasing a machine to clean up the drains without involving any human. She names it Gulab which will remove the dirt and spread fragrance.The story revolves around the inherent class divide existing in our society. Both Gulab and the bullies are the victims of this societal discrepancy, one as perpetrator and the other as victim…