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The story revolves around two princesses created by the fairy queen Sheera to deal with her boredom. One of the princesses is sent to the kingdom of darkness and is to be protected from the sun while the other is sent to the prosperous kingdom of the light and is to be protected from the night. Sheera keeps adding up complexities to their lives as the plot progresses until they both finally meet each other and help each other’s kingdoms.The story has three female characters as protagonists and all three of them are appreciated for their beauty first and other characteristics later. The adjectives used for the females are only focusing upon their physical attributes which follows the standard beauty norms…

Fantasy is a tricky genre. It plays right at the heart of why many of us read: to escape, to find refuge. After the success of Harry Potter, publishers around the world flooded readers with YA fantasies, so much so that the genre became saturated with numerous worlds, each with their elaborate rules and patchwork characters. And while Tanaz Bhathena’s duology, Wrath of Ambar is based on one of the oldest tropes in storytelling, a hero, her destiny and the quest she embarks upon, the result is a refreshingly absurd world which attempts to hold up a mirror to the one we inhabit and create every day…

There used to be a time, long ago in most of our childhoods possibly, when we would have real, vivid and intense dreams, dreams within dreams, where we would experience physically acts of falling from a height, slipping, running and even as we awoke, our hearts would continue to race. Sangu Mandanna’s ninth adventure fantasy novel is a quick paced, vividly descriptive work of art and imagination.Kiki Kallira is the protagonist, recounting her life in the first person. She loves sketching and draws up characters from the Indian folklore of Mysore. Even as these characters come alive, threaten to destroy the real world, there is a parallel narrative of great courage and bravery displayed by Kiki—alluding to an aspect of herself that remains mostly hidden…

In all good Hindi movies, after a lot of trials and tribulations, the hero would come in and save the day. After all the trials and tribulations COVID brought upon us, it looks like the hero is ancient Indian traditions, which would sweep in and save the day. From doing namaste instead of shaking hands and exchanging viruses, to realizing that humble kaarhas worked better than unnecessary remdesivir. So maybe even for fighting the current ongoing epidemic of non-communicable diseases, worsened by COVID, the hero will be the same ancient traditions: food practices and exercise, based on sound scientific principles, which will sweep in and save all of us. Ayurveda recommends that meals should have something of all the six flavours: sweet, sour, salt, spicy, bitter and astringent…

My first introduction to the nonsense verse was a book gifted to me on my ninth birthday—Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense. Growing up around that timeline on a diet of Enid Blyton’s works, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Norton Juster’s works—this book deviated from the usual parameters that writers normally take into account when writing for children or young adults. The artwork in this work were exaggerated faces and as shocking/surprising as the images were; they were absolutely delightful. Later on, I searched for works in this genre in the Indian context that had for their audience children and adults as well and came across an anthology of translated works published in 2007…

A Pinch of Magic by Asha Nehemiah is a story about a girl named Veena and her aunty Malu. Aunt Malu makes herbal medicines. She is known for her herbal medicines that she learned from her Guru. One of the tools that Aunt Malu uses to make her medicines breaks and the story revolves around Veena and Aunt Malu looking for that pinching spoon that is required for making medicines.The story throws light on some very important issues and breaks stereotypes while sticking to the narrative. The role of women is a major part of the story. Aunt Malu and Veena go to Harrabharrapazham in order to look for the Guru. Initially, they are disappointed because they are not able to find the Guru. But later in the story we see that they find the Guru and she turns out to be a woman, when they were expecting a man…