I like browsing in a good library or bookstore. Once in a bookstore, I was looking at the new titles when I caught sight of two girls at a nearby shelf. One seemed to be a budding teenager and the other a pre-teenager. The former pulled out a book from the shelf. I strained my neck to get a glimpse of the title. It was Wonder Tales for a Warming Planet. The younger girl plucked it from her sister’s hand and read the title aloud.
‘“Wonder Tales” sounds good, but what is the meaning of “For a Warming Planet”?’ she said and grimaced. ‘No, I don’t want this book.’ ‘Listen,’ reasoned the elder sister, ‘mother has allowed only one book for the two of us. I’ll read it and tell you what the “Warming Planet” stands for. It will be interesting reading, I can guess.’ She flipped through the pages and continued, ‘Look, there seems to be a lot of fantasy in the tales. I’m sure you’ll like it. And again… there are activities for us at the end of the book. We can have hours of fun. Come on.’ She took the book, pulled her sister’s hand and went to her mother standing at the counter, waiting for the girls.
This scene kindled my curiosity. The trio stepped out of the store, book in hand and I picked up another copy of it from the shelf and turned the pages. ‘Hmm… looks like I have to buy it too,’ I said to myself. So here I am now, with the book in my hand, relaxing in the warm winter sun in the balcony of my home, reading the book. It did not take long for me to decide to review it so as to make more children interested to read it.
A word about the catchy title: at first, I read it as Wonder Tales for a Warming Planet. The next moment my oversight dawned on me. The title actually is Wonder Tales for a Warming Planet. It straightaway seems to address the earthlings and transmits a power-laden message to them. It proclaims ‘the wonder tales are for you; you, who are somehow surviving today on a planet that is rapidly warming up. Think about what would happen tomorrow if this warming continues?’ This is woven into the stories with the learning notes and activities acting as props. It is up to the readers to recognize the problem that confronts them today, while at the same time, enjoying the uncanny, fantasy tales.
For long, fantasy stories like Julia Donaldson’s Room on a Broom with a beautiful message woven into it, and many other collections of weird fantasy stories have caught the attention of children. Later, the Harry Potter series or Indian tales like Samsara: Enter the Valley of the Gods have taken young minds by storm.
And now comes Wonder Tales for a Warming Planet which attacks the burning issues of today like global warming and its consequences through the medium of the ever-popular genre—fantasy. If the fantasy part of it mesmerizes the early middle schooler, the powerful message the stories carry gives food for thought to the older children and young adults, and me, too.
An opening letter from the author addresses the reader directly. The historical structure of the letter leading from yester years to the rather miserable present-day state of affairs arrests the reader’s attention. The letter closes in a comforting tone, ‘Let these stories about a warming planet be your friend and companion… Listen to their messages and use what you learn in your life… you will one day bring back the seasons and the planet will be cooler. The birds will sing with joy again and the demon will not step into your minds anymore.’
There are three stories in all, each with an active demon at work. The protagonist is Tina in the first story, a shy, Cinderella-type oppressed college girl who gets to travel with a stranger to strange places. His weird dress and name remind her of vampires. In the second, we meet a no-ordinary boarding school teenager, Gogol, who meets spooky but friendly creatures in a graveyard adjacent to his hostel. But he loses them. The book must be read to resolve the mystery of why they left. We are introduced to an ‘old lady’ in the third. She is addressed as ‘Ouma’ by the young macros swimming in the water. Ouma has a ‘large, pendulous head, twenty-feet long, covered with reddish-blue scales at the centre of which gleams an all-seeing eye’. The black and white illustration depicting Ouma and the macros helps the reader to paint a vivid and fantastic mental picture of the scenario.
The other black and white illustrations in the book also kindle the imagination of the reader to create unusual, goose-bumpy mental pictures that metamorphose into comforting ones, as and when the stories begin to give solutions to the dire present- day condition, namely that of a rapidly warming planet. Learning notes at the end of each story are helpful. They explain briefly terms like ‘alternative energy’, ‘sustainable technologies’, and ‘geo-engineering’, etc. They are educative and useful. The activities at the end of the book will stimulate the readers to play the innovative games that will enhance reflective thinking, decision making, comprehension, coordination, awareness of problems and finding solutions for them, and more.
The book speaks for the author and reveals him as a dedicated environmentalist who is keen to drive home the subject of protection of the environment. He is targeting an impressionable age. So, I do hope there comes about a distinct change in the outlook of the readers, planting a necessary seed in their minds that will soon sprout, and propel them to find and take steps to arrest the disastrous warming of our dear planet earth.
So go ahead and buy the book. It may not appeal to one and all. But children with a good reading habit will truly appreciate the seriousness of burning issues presented by the stories, while, at the same time, they get mesmerized by the imaginative travel the stories take them on.