Shah Jahan and the Ruby Robber by Natasha Sharma

It's #femmeMarch and I am reviewing books by women, or books featuring women characters. I may not always have nice things to say about the books, but my review will be fair and honest. Read on...

(This review first appeared in GoodBooks.in. http://www.goodbooks.in/version2/2019/02/22/shah-jahan-and-the-ruby-robber/)

Shah Jahan, the Great Mughal Emperor, is hopping mad. Someone has replaced the precious Timur Ruby on his new throne with a … plum! What’s worse, plums are suddenly turning up everywhere. Who can help the emperor solve this mystery?

What Works:

• Part of Duckbill’s History-Mystery series, this book, like the others in the series, blends history and story together in an imaginative way.
• Since the book is aimed at younger readers, the length, the chapterisation, the sentence structure, the use of repetition (such as in the opening lines: “A great Mughal king must not hop. He must not skip. He must not high-five.”) – all these elements work very well.
• Unlike the first couple of books in the History-Mystery series, such as Akbar and the Tricky Traitor and Ashoka and the Muddled Messages, which are not well-grounded in history and present the reader with two-dimensional cardboard characters, Shahjahan and the Ruby Robber evokes the period in which it is set much better and offers us glimpses into the eccentricities of some of the characters.
• Having Shahjahan’s children solve the mystery for him is a very good idea. It serves as a reminder that history is made not merely by famous folks, powerful people and other adults, but also by children, and even a little toddler. Young readers are likely to appreciate this inclusion.
• What does not work:
• Natasha Sharma researches exhaustively and writes well but is not always able to integrate her research into the story or plot the intrigues and conspiracies convincingly.
• Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest son, is presented rather shabbily in the story. Why on earth would he suddenly utter the words, “As the great poets say: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”? Not only is this anachronistic, it in no way adds to the story or to the character.
• Considering that Shahjahan’s court was fabulously wealthy and magnificent, one wishes that the illustrations had been in colour so that they could have evoked the splendour and grandeur.

CONCLUSION

A book for a 7-9-year-old that is sure to make her laugh and, hopefully, become interested in history. Some of the inauthentic bits should have been edited out, though.

Book Details

Author: Natasha Sharma

Illustrator: Lavanya Naidu

Language: English

Page Extent: 70

Price: 199

ISBN: 978-93-83331-68-0

Publisher: Duckbill 2017

Age Group: 7-9 years 

Dada's Useless Present

It's Femme March and Women's Day as well, and so I have decided to post a review a day on a book written by a woman. Maybe I will say nice things about the book, maybe I won't. But I will strive to be fair and honest.

Beginning with the first of my #femmeMarch 2019 posts ... 

This review first appeared in GoodBooks.in
http://www.goodbooks.in/version2/2019/02/12/dadas-useless-present/

Dada may be celebrating his 82nd birthday but he still considers himself spry, until a seemingly thoughtful gift from his son tells him otherwise. Dada, however, is convinced it is a useless present – until he finds many useful things to do with it!

What Works:

• A charming story about the spirit of ageing grandparents who refuse to give up their independence. Dada gets a walking stick as a present from his son and believes it is completely useless till he finds all kinds of other uses for it except what it is meant for!
• Author Nalini Sorensen’s text is concise and skillfully portrays Dada’s various reactions to his present without being unnecessarily verbose. She also fleshes out the relationship between Dada and his granddaughter Panu lovingly.
• The author blends humour, affection and the little details of everyday life into an engaging tale.
• Allen Shaw’s beautiful water-colour illustrations invite the reader into Panu’s home and show the story of how her grandfather dealt with his ‘not-so-useless’ present. Shaw captures the beauty of the interiors as well as the verdant lushness of the mango orchard close by. The clever use of different angles makes Panu’s home appear three-dimensional.
• This picture book was the winner of the Jarul Book Award 2018.

What Does Not Work:

• If I can pick a bone with Allen Shaw’s art, it is that the facial expressions of his characters are indiscriminately jovial and pleasant.

CONCLUSION

It’s a lovely picture book for the 6-8-year-old and encourages the reader to be innovative and think out of the box.

BOOK DETAILS

Author: Nalini Sorensen

Illustrator: Allen Shaw

Page Extent: 26

Price: 250

Publisher: Karadi Tales 2016

Subject Category: Fiction/Picture Book/Humour

Age Group: 6-8 years

#femmeMarch – Indian YA Books and the Class Divide

A couple of years ago, I happened to listen to Andaleeb Wajid (at St. Joseph’s College where I was teaching then) talk about her books and the writing process. I hadn’t yet read any of her books - her first, Kite Strings, was published in 2009 – but was very impressed by the author herself -  warm, articulate and approachable. Dressed in a black abaya, a pastel hijab and an amused smile, she described how she managed to fit her writing into her busy life, and still have time for social media and friends. She explained that she focuses on the teen reader, for whom there aren’t too many options, and that her characters were invariably Muslim. That interested me for most Indian books for teenagers hardly ever featured Muslim or Christian or Buddhist characters, except as sidekicks.

In the last nine years, Andaleeb has published fifteen books (that’s right!) with the latest, titled Twenty Nine Going On Thirty out this month. Most of them are written for the Young Adult reader (14-24 years) and feature romance and food. Lately, she has experimented with the horror genre, which she says she enjoys reading. She works with several different publishers including Juggernaut Books who are changing the way people read (For the first time ever, I read a book on my phone with the Juggernaut app 😊). A single publisher probably wouldn't be able to keep up with her amazing output.

That afternoon, I went away telling myself I would soon read a book by Andaleeb but I didn’t (My bad). Not until this week, that is. As part of my #femmeMarch reading, I was keeping an eye out for women writers – global, local, writing for adults, teens or children. And that’s how I finally picked up Andaleeb’s Asmara’s Summer and kept my promise to myself 😊.

Asmara, the protagonist and the first-person narrator, is a pampered teenager who has had a privileged upbringing. To her absolute mortification, she is expected to spend a month of her summer holidays with her grandparents who live in an area perceived as shabby, down-market and conservative. All these years, she has not even let on to her best friends that her grandparents live there! Asmara dreads her ‘summer from hell’ with no air-conditioning, no cool stuff to do, and no Wi-Fi. But, no worries, for it’s a romance, and so good things loom ahead, including a new BFF and a neighbor who is a handsome hunk.

The best part of the book for me is that it looks at class issues in the face, at how we resort to stereotypes about ‘those’ people and ‘their style’ of dressing and the food ‘they’ like to eat. Asmara moves to Tannery Road with all these narrow labels firmly in place and even sets up a new Instagram account to bitch about ‘the bling’ and the ‘loud glitzy colours’ used by people living ‘there’. But luckily, Asmara is a thinking person, and soon, uses her critical faculties to understand others and herself better.

What did not work for me is that the narrative doesn’t take the critical gaze far enough – while Asmara makes friends in the neighbourhood, she doesn’t dwell on what underlying social structures set this area apart from posher areas in Bangalore. How do they manage with intermittent water supply? Why are the schools and college in the neighbourhood not great places to study in? Why do the Tannery Road residents have to be helped by someone from a posh part of the city? The book is a quick and easy read and contents itself by merely scratching the surface of the classist times we live in.  

It’s #femmeMarch! Have you read a book by a woman today?

March isn't only about the madness of the March hare, or exam fever. It's #femmemarch month and a time to celebrate women writers. And so, I spent this afternoon reading two very interesting books on Storyweaver. Not only are they written by women, they are about women too.

StoryWeaver is this amazing platform where at last count, 7313 stories have been published online in 109 languages! It is an offshoot of Pratham Books and seeks to ensure that every child in India can read a story in the language of her choice. The stories are not controlled by copyright, and children, teachers, parents and librarians anywhere in the world can read them online, download them, print them, make copies and circulate them. StoryWeaver allows you to contribute in terms of creating new stories, contributing artwork, translating or re-levelling existing stories. I cannot think of a more noble, wonderful, or applause-worthy venture.

The two books I read were Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments with Weather by Nandita Jayaraj and illustrated by the extraordinary Priya Kurian, and The Cottonwool Doctor by Michelle Mathews and illustrated by Jean de Wet. The first is a Level 3 book and the second is a Level 2 book. Level 2 books deal with simple concepts and have upto 600 words, while Level 3 books make use of longer sentences and can be upto 1500 words long. Both books are biographies, based on real people and describe women’s accomplishments in the field of science and technology.

Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments is about Dr. Anna Mani, an Indian physicist and meteorologist who built almost a hundred weather gadgets. As a child, Anna loved books and spent all her free time reading. She cried when she was gifted diamonds on her birthday as she would have preferred to receive books. 

The Cottonwool Doctor traces the life of Margaret Bulkly who lived in the nineteenth century. Her parents spent all their money on their son’s education (sounds familiar?) and had nothing left for their daughter. With help from her uncle and a family friend, she dressed like a boy, changed her name and enrolled in medical school. 

Henceforth, she was known as Dr. James Barry and travelled all over the world with no one realizing that she was a woman until AFTER she DIED. What an amazing life this brave and determined woman must have led!

Do check out StoryWeaver.org.in for some interesting children’s books.