Book Reviews

History, Mystery, Dal and Biryani Written by Subhadra Sen Gupta Illustrations by Tapas Guha Published by Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. Sumptuous Delights Don’t you sometimes wish you were on a time machine, able to go back and forth in time at will? Recently, while reading this book of 10 short …...

Festival of Eid English translation of ‘Eidgah’ (Hindi) Written by Munshi Premchand Translated by Khushwant Singh Published by National Book Trust, New Delhi Translated by the veteran columnist and writer, Khushwant Singh, Festival of Eid retains the compelling essence of the original …...

Zigzag and Other Stories Written by Asha Nehemiah Illustrations by Atanu Roy Published by Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. A queer-looking African bird, with shocking pink plumes on the head, a yellow beak and eyes the colour of Cola, Zigzag, is the main character of the title story in this collection of …...

Excerpts from ‘Books Forever’ Written by Manoj Das Published by National Book Trust, New Delhi India’s literary past is indeed great. It’s a known fact that many of the parables of the Bible, the fables of Aesop of Greece, the folktales collected by the Grimm brothers of …...

An individual booklist is found to reflect the compiler’s own interests and biases. To that extent this booklist does not lay claim to any objectivity. It contains some extremely fine books on education, popular science, maths and children’s stories. Over the years, I have been actively involved in …...

The Magical Land of Narnia [Illustration by Shinod AP] ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ series by C.S. Lewis Review by Sujit Thomas; Illustration by Shinod AP Most newspapers which carried articles about Harry Potter several months ago usually had only one thing to say, though in different …...

The Golden Compass Written by Philip Pullman Published by Alfred A. Knopf. 11 year old Gayatri Jayal, a student of Modern School Vasant Vihar and a fierce fan of Lyra Belacqua, wrties her impression of this half-civilised, half-wild young girl, who looks set to take the world of children’s …...

Stories From Bapu’s Life Written by Uma Shankar Joshi Illustrations by Mickey Patel Published by National Book Trust, New Delhi Gandhiji’s intellectual influence on Indians has been considerable. Some were attracted by his emphasis on political and economic decentralisation, others by his …...

Excerpts from the book: Divaswapna, An Educator’s Reverie Written by Gijubhai Badheka; Translated by Chittaranjan Pathak Published by National Book Trust, New Delhi I waited eagerly for the school to begin. I was eager to take my class and start my work; eager to put my new plan into practice; …...

Kali and the Rat Snake Written by Zai Whitaker Illustrations by Srividya Natarajan Published by Tulika, Chennai An excerpt from the book: Kali’s father was one of the most famous snake-catchers among the Irula tribe. He had caught over a hundred cobras just this monsoon and bought many good …...