‘For most, school begins with crayons, satchels and tears. But for Ananya, it began with smiles and a lipstick.’
This delightful children’s novel recounting a young girl’s adventures in a private boarding school opens by describing the delight of its protagonist Ananya Patel.
Here is a complete package of real life conflict, love and hope attractively coloured by gloom of darkness to sparkle of Light. The unusual title—Darkless–invokes curiosity because there is no such word in the dictionary, still it manages to convey a whole depth of meaning as the story completes.
‘Long, long ago there was a kingdom called the Golden Valley, nestling amidst evergreen forests.’ Manoj Das’s book opens in the manner the best fairy tales do–by evoking an idyllic sylvan world where ‘everyone lives happily’. However, he says, even in Golden Valley,..
‘History tells us what people do. Historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.’ Jean M Auel
Queen of Earth is a gender bending narrative of a spunky queen, appropriate to our times.
Kalinga of the seventh century is a vast land ruled by two adversaries, the Somavamsha and the Bhaumakaras.
The fate of a young princess caught in their crossfire is expertly depicted by Devika Rangachari in Queen of Earth.
Sisters at New Dawn by Varsha Seshan is a coming-of-age story of two sisters, Padma and Kannagi Shankar. Most of the action of the story takes place at New Dawn, a high school that is committed to fostering values of ‘honesty, integrity, justice’ in the students enrolled there.
