More to the Story by Hena Khan

If, as a young bookish girl, you loved Little Women and totally identified with Jo–have I got the perfect read for you. More to the Story is a reworking of Alcott’s classic tale, set in contemporary  Georgia and featuring a Pakistani American Muslim family. 6th-grader Jameela is an avid aspiring journalist, working away at her school newspaper. When a boy from England moves in next door, the sisters perk up–Ali is young and cute and has a British accent to boot. But events take a grim turn when Jameela’s father leaves the family to take a job overseas. And then her younger sister Bisma falls sick, with cancer….

 

I loved the way Khan has taken on a classic and shaped it to reflect our multicultural world–her respect and affection for the original tale shine through on every page. Like Little Women, this story is narrated by Jameela, whose efforts to make her dad proud don’t always work out as intended. Winning characters, a plot clued-in to the modern-day concerns of middle-graders, and nuanced portrayals of Pakistani American and Muslim culture all make this book a must-read. And hey, it’d make a great movie too!

Note: this book’s release date is September 3. I received an advance copy from NetGalley for this review.

I reviewed this book for Multicultural Kid Blogs Read Around the World Summer Series! Check out their Fb page and their other book recs at https://www.facebook.com/MulticulturalKidBlogs/

#‎ReadtheWorldMKB‬ ‪#‎WeNeedDiverseBooks‬ ‪#‎ReadYourWorld‬

 

The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Long long ago, on a splendid blog far far away, I promised I’d join Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder challenge. Read Harder aims to get us out of our reading bubble and boldly explore strange new worlds; for me, that might be a novel about war, or prescriptive non-fiction on becoming rich, or a book about religion…I’ve discovered that the trick is to use what you like as a springboard for the new stuff. I will never, never, never warm to chick lit or pop philosophy or macho heroes, but I’d certainly look for an #ownvoices book set in Oceania, and I might just give a book of manga a shot.

I began with the first challenge in #ReadHarder, to read an epistolary novel or collection of letters. This was possibly the easiest challenge ever, for it gives me the chance to tell you about a book I LOVED.  Padma Venkatraman’s middle-grade novel The Bridge Home is one of those books on behalf which I’d evangelize tirelessly. It’s beautiful and moving and deals with tough topics with exceptional finesse, and if you’re not profoundly stirred at the end of your read, well, I suggest therapy.

TBH is set in the city of Chennai, in southern India, and details the experiences of eleven-year-old Viji, who, along with her developmentally disabled sister Rukku, runs away from her abusive alcoholic father. Viji must find a home safe from predatory men, and figure out how the sisters can earn a living. The girls meet two other homeless children Muthu and Arul, who teach them to scavenge for sellable scraps in the city’s enormous garbage dump. The four children become fast friends and make a home together on an abandoned bridge, but it’s a precarious existence—a single piece of bad luck might upend everything.

Meticulously detailed settings, believable and likable characters, unsentimental portrayals of poverty and deprivation, and a healthy dose of humor all come together to make an eye-wateringly good read. And I loved that it’s set in (one of) my hometowns–Chennai!

And yes, TBH is an epistolary novel–it’s written in the form of letters  from Viji to Rukku. This book was published in Feb. 2019, and I’ll bet one of my kidneys it’ll pick up a bunch of awards, for diversity and for overall excellence, and hence I’m covered for task #22–to read a children’s or middle grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009.

I loved this book so much that I interviewed the author for The Rumpus, and she had a lot of interesting things to say about poverty, India, and the intersection of stories and science. Here’s an excerpt:

The Rumpus: You lived in India when you were the same age as the characters in the novel. Did you know children like them? If you did, I think this sort of social interaction between classes/castes in India would have been quite unusual, especially back in the 1980s?

Padma Venkatraman: It was unusual. I was born into a wealthy Brahmin family, but my parents separated (which was highly unusual). After that, unlike any other South Asian American author I’ve met, I experienced economic hardship firsthand. But it was nothing like the dire poverty I saw around me.

Despite our fraught monetary situation, my mother volunteered to help at schools for children who had much less than we did. At one such school, I quickly became good friends with a boy called Nagabushan. I had a sort of childish crush on him—I really admired how deftly he could throw clay and shape a vase on his father’s wheel. Years later, I realized that he came from the Dalit community and would have been considered “untouchable.” Viji’s character is inspired by a friend who is Roma, who once sheltered in a graveyard and scrounged through trash, and asked if I’d write her story.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

 

Mystery of the Min Min Lights by Janelle Diller: A Pack-n-Go Girls Adventure

If you follow this blog, you know my middle name is diversity, and so, I joined this year’s Multicultural Children’s Book Day, wherein I was assigned The Mystery of the Min Min Lights by Janelle Diller. It’s the Australian installment of the Pack-n-go Girls Adventure series, which has a lovely mission –“to inspire girls to discover the world. To be curious. To be independent. To value what unites us. And to celebrate the differences that make us unique.” What’s not to like?

Nine-year-old Lee Wen Chi, who goes by Wendy Lee, has just landed in Australia. Her mom is working on six-month-long software project here, and Wendy decided to accompany her rather than stay back in San Francisco with her grandparents. Wendy’s a bit worried about how different it all is, but then it turns out her neighbor’s a fun nine-year-old girl, yay! Chloe Taylor invites Wendy to stay for the weekend on their sheep station. Something weird is going on at the station–strange blinking (Min Min) lights come on, and then sheep go missing. Could, um, a UFO be stealing sheep?

Interestingly, the min min light is a real-life light phenomenon that’s been reported in Australia. According to Wikipedia, Australian folklore says “the lights sometimes follow or approach people and disappear when fired upon, sometimes very rapidly, only to reappear later on, and anyone who chases the lights and catches them will never return to tell the tale.“

What a charming book! The characters–Chloe and her little brother Jack, and Wendy–are endearing, believable children. The mystery is fun (Min Min lights! UFOs vacuuming up sheep!) and creatively imagined. There’s a lovely sense of adventure surrounding the entire tale–the parents are supportive and in the tradition of the Famous Five et al., mostly hang out in the background and let the kids deal with the issues at hand.

I did feel that the book was a bit heavy-handed at times while explaining Australian slang, but the target audience (6-9 years) probably won’t find it so. Overall, the author does a great job of showing the contrast between Chinese American Wendy’s SF upbringing and the heat and dust of a sheep station. The book also has a handy index at the back for young armchair travelers, with facts about Australia, travel tips, food and yes, slang.

After I was assigned this book, the author asked if I’d review the forthcoming sequel.  As I was glad to get more Wendy, I also read Mystery of the Rusty Key. There’s much less overt explanation of Australia in this installment, which I devoured in one happy gulp. Wendy accompanies her friends Chloe and Jack and their mom to visit Chloe’s great aunt in Sydney, Australia. Aunty Pauline warns them about a curse on the family, and gives them an old letter and an equally old rusty key. The letter, written by Chloe’s great-great-great-grandfather on his deathbed, tells his descendant to safeguard the key, which unlocks a box which contains instructions to end the curse… But where’s the box now?

Since this story is set in Sydney, we get a mention of the Sydney Opera House, and Diller also works in several facts about Australia’s settler history, And I love that the kids solve this mystery by showing courage, ingenuity, persistence–and by doing some solid research in the local library.

I asked my eleven-year-old to read both books and he much preferred the second installment, as the mystery was more intricate, and the story more fast-paced. I think younger readers might have the opposite reaction. As for the very old reader–hey, I have no  preferences, and found both books hugely enjoyable. The author does a great job of teaching kids about Australia, and an equally awesome job of showing strong young girls doing their thing. Recommended!

***

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2019 (1/25/19) is in its 6^th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom.  Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.

MCBD 2019 is honored to have the following Medallion Sponsors on board!

*View our 2019 Medallion Sponsors here: https://wp.me/P5tVud-
*View our 2019 MCBD Author Sponsors here: https://wp.me/P5tVud-2eN

We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.

TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Make A Way Media: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual @McChildsBookDay Twitter Party will be held 1/25/19 at 9:00pm.E.S.T. TONS of prizes and book bundles will be given away during the party ( a prize every 5 minutes!). GO HERE for more details.

FREE RESOURCES From MCBD

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta

Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/

Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.

 

 

Rebel Voices by Louise Kay Stewart

Vote. Vote. Vote.

Rebel Voices: The Global Fight for Women’s Equality and the Right to Vote is a slim picture book that depicts the story of women’s voting rights. It’s a narrative that will inspire and madden you by turns.  The author presents the history of suffrage movements in various countries in the chronological order that their women gained the vote. Yay, New Zealand–the first country to give women the right to vote, in 1893; Saudi Arabia joined the club in, um, 2015. And some surprises too–Switzerland gave women the vote in 1971!  And it’s sad (but perhaps not surprising) that many former colonies who’d gone through long painful struggles to cast off their oppressors didn’t give their women the vote after gaining freedom. Like Nigeria, which rid itself of British rule in 1960–and denied women their voting rights till 1976. Boo.

The book is for the 11-14 crowd, and is filled with tales of strength and (not-too-graphic) suffering, of women protesting in the cold and rain, losing their employment, being imprisoned, beaten, and force-fed with tubes shoved down their throats.  We learn about the cruelty of the men who were firmly convinced that law, logic, and the good lord were on their side, and that often, they cast their opposition as respect and care. One said that women’s hands were “not for holding ballot boxes, but for kisses.” I can hear a room of 12-yr-olds going YUCK.

Despite the protests by women (and the men who supported them), those in power were often obdurate; in several cases, it was large-scale societal changes caused by WWI or II that made it possible for women to get the vote.  I’m reminded of the Assata Shakur quote–“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” Furthermore,  the book omits to mention that plenty of women too opposed universal suffrage, believing that the women voters would be violating gender norms and god’s will, and  worked sincerely to support the patriarchy and deny themselves voting rights.

Rebel Voices presents a solid case for moving to New Zealand–there’s the LOTR landscapes, a cool prime minister, and a political system that granted equal voting rights to Maori women and white settler women right from the start. WOW. In most other countries, white women suffragists eagerly threw their sisters of color under the bus. Of course South Africa gave white women the vote in 1930 and black men and women the vote in 1994, but consider the US, where white women gained the right to vote in 1920 while black women in some states had to wait till 1965. Australia: 1902 and 1962 for white and Aboriginal women respectively. As for Canada, white women received the vote in 1918, but “Asian women and men were left out and were not included until after the Second World War. Indigenous women and men living on reserves — and most everywhere else as well — were viewed as wards of the Crown under the Indian Act, and were excluded from the vote across Canada, except in rare cases, until 1960.”  Rebel Voices doesn’t mention this facet of Canadian suffrage. Hmmm.

Despite its omissions, Rebel Voices would make a good gift if you are looking to nudge a  pre-teen towards political awareness–it’s short, fun, and features lovely illustrations to accompany preach-free text. And being cognizant of the history of suffrage has seldom felt more important. I was born in the 1970s, and the struggles for voting rights for women often seemed like ancient history. But over the past decades, I’ve grown to realize that the school of thought which manifested as opposition to women’s suffrage never went away; many who oppose(d) women’s rights are currently flourishing in positions of power.

Vote. And if you’re in America: vote today!

***

Rebel Voices was published in November 2018 by Crocodile Books. Thanks to the publishers for the review copy!

Meet Yasmin by Saadia Faruqi

Books about inclusion and valuing difference have never been more important, but how do you get kids to absorb the good stuff when they’re unwilling to be overtly educated?(Okay, maybe it’s only my kid. Anyway.) Fortunately, many kidlit authors know how to inform and persuade without permitting a hint of didacticism to creep into their storytelling. Saadia Faruqi is an author, speaker, and interfaith activist based in Houston, and her book Meet Yasmin (Picture Window Books, August 2018) features an adorable Pakistani American second grader who makes the case for inclusion over the course of four stories, all presented as a slice of her life.

While each story tackles a problem, the conflicts don’t arise from Yasmin’s cultural identity–the plots are universally relatable. Yasmin faces challenges that every kid has gone through, such as getting momentarily lost in a crowded venue, worried that her entry in an art competition isn’t good enough, feeling bored and so on. And while Yasmin draws a map or builds with K’nex, we learn about her family and her background through narrative detail.

There’s some very clever writing going here, where the cultural information is prominent but never obtrusive, and Faruqi never resorts to platitudes or heavy-handed lessons. For instance, when Yasmin is heading to the Farmer’s Market with her mom, she can “hardly wait as Mama got her hijab and her purse.” Faruqi thus demystifies and contextualizes cultural markers without ever resorting to overt explanations. And kids unfamiliar with a hijab have a handy illustration to look at too!

Yasmin is a young seven–she holds her mom’s hand as she walks to the Farmer’s Market, and puts on a fashion show with her grandma. Each story is brimming with heart and charm. The illustrations by Hatem Aly nobly hold up their end — Yasmin’s large, twinkly eyes, and her tulip nose are the very definition of winsome.

And finally: Meet Yasmin is populated by the most diverse cast ever. Yasmin’s grandpa is disabled, her teacher is white, the famous television artist Yasmin looks at for inspiration is black, her friend Emma builds a church, Principal Nguyen judges the art contest, and so on. No overt references are made to identity — it’s all winningly presented as a part of the fabric of the world Yasmin inhabits.

 

In sum, Meet Yasmin, with its charming plot, subtle message of inclusion and diversity, and flat-out adorable protagonist would be a wonderful addition to any 5-8-year-old’s reading. May this book find a home in every second-grade classroom library in America!

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Front Desk might just be in my top five middle-grade books ever. EVER. My review could have been three times as long as this piece, and I still wouldn’t have run out of good things to say about Kelly Yang’s control of her material–and her magnificent heroine.

***

(A slightly edited version of this piece appears in Asian Review of Books, Hong Kong.)

It’s 1993, and ten-year-old Mia Tang’s parents have just been employed by Mr Yao to manage Calivista Motel in Southern California. The Tangs are excited and optimistic despite all the hardships they’ve faced since immigrating to America not that long ago. In China, Mia’s parents were engineers; Mia took private piano lessons; an uncle was a doctor. In America, the Tangs are viewed primarily as poor non-white immigrants who don’t speak good English. Mia loves English, but her mother thinks she ought to focus on math, because Mia will never surpass a native English speaker; she’ll be a “bicycle among cars”.

The fictional exploration of the social demotion caused by immigration is hardly new, but rarely has it been portrayed with such warmth and urgency as in Front Desk (Arthur A. Levine Books, May 2018). Mia’s parents labor endlessly cleaning rooms and managing guests, but never satisfy the “coal-hearted” owner Mr. Yao, who daily discovers creative reasons to shrink the family’s paycheck. As newly-arrived immigrants with little English and no footholds in America, the Tangs are all too easily exploited. “We’re immigrants […] Our lives are never fair,” sighs Mia’s mother. Mia insists on helping her parents by taking over the motel’s front desk. After all, how hard can it be to buzz customers in, assign a room, collect their payment, and hand over a key?

Adventures and misadventures ensue. Mia botches a wake-up call, inadvertently admits a belligerent drunk, forgets to collect keys from departing guests, and more… errors all gleefully accounted for by Mr Yao. Mia’s father believes they must accept their fate. But Mia’s friend Lupe gives her the inside scoop about America: there are two roller coasters in the country, one for the rich and one for the poor. On the rich one, “people have money, so their kids get to go to great schools. Then they grow up and make a lot of money, so their kids get to go to great schools.” And round and round they go. But on the poor roller coaster, “our parents don’t have money, so we can’t go to good schools, and then we can’t get good jobs. So then our kids can’t go to good schools, they can’t get good jobs, and so on.” If Tangs are to jump off the bad roller coaster and onto the good, Mia must figure out America.

Mia takes charge. She placates an irate guest with a free soda, for “in America, everything had to do with money”, and cannily sets up a tip jar on the front desk. She makes customer service notes and feedback cards. When the washing machine and the cable both break down, she realizes, “[Americans] could live with dirty towels for a day or two, but they needed their TV.” She witnesses racism when the cops harass an African-American motel guest, but also glimpses the American ideal of freedom that tempted her parents to leave China—an ideal that might provide the springboard to jumping coasters.

Mia’s proudest achievement, however, is her new fluency in English (thanks to hard work and a thesaurus-dictionary). Mia writes thank you notes and an A+ school essay, and then moves on to bigger things—a reference letter for an employee, and even a convincing lawyer’s notice. She’s a Bugatti, not a bicycle; what will she achieve next with her power?

Front Desk provides (ultra-timely) social commentary on the immigrant life in America, but to me, it’s primarily a great story, with adventure, suspense, boatloads of humor, a suitably wicked villain, and an endearing heroine. And what a heroine Mia is—clever, resourceful, courageous, helpful, and, most importantly, able to view mistakes as learning opportunities. Mia is the poster child for Carol Dweck’s growth mindset theory; given enough time, this ten-year-old could spin straw into gold. The writing itself is as strong as the characterization—there isn’t a whiff of cliché, and Yang never tells us the obvious; every event is mined deep for true emotion and insight. I wouldn’t delete a single line in the book.

Mia’s story is based on Kelly Yang’s own experiences running the front desk in her parents’ motel. Yang went on to Berkeley and Harvard Law, and now runs a writing program for children; color me unsurprised that her career focuses on spreading the power of the written word. Front Desk is testament to how a great story can grab you by the heart and never quite let go: a classic of the genre.

 

 

Murder, deceit, dissimulation, and peep.

Source:  Writing About Writing

Always Anjali by Sheetal Sheth

On the morning of her seventh birthday, Anjali gets the best gift ever–a new bike! She can’t wait to ride to the fair with her BFFs Mary and Courtney.  At the fair, there’s a stall selling personalized bicycle license plates.  Mary and Courtney scoop up theirs, but Anjali’s told to make do with Angela. As a disappointed Anjali walks away, one of the older boys begins to chant “Ann-Jelly! Can I get a peanut butter an-jelly with a dot on top?”

Anjali rides home determined to change her embarrassingly uncommon, license plate-less name to Angie, but then learns that her Indian Sanskrit name means a divine gift. “To be different is to be marvelous” says mom. (“Humph” goes Anjali.) But after thinking about her situation, Anjali gets to work. With creativity, self-confidence, and a no-nonsense focus on what’s really important, she remedies the lack of license plate issue–and teaches her bully a thing or two.

My goodness, how I love Always Anjali (Bharat Babies, May 2018).  Indian American author Sheetal Sheth, whom I’ve seen in films such as The World Unseen and American Chai, takes on an issue that is both extremely personal (your name!) and also works perfectly as shorthand for the larger question of inclusion. A name needing explanation is a symbol of so much more–from being asked how you speak English to where *exactly* you’re from. This issue is close to my heart, as you can probably tell…

I also deeply appreciate how Sheth points out that it’s a systemic issue we’re dealing with–the only guilty person is the creepy kid who teases Anjali. The problem is the lack of  inclusion in cultural and social settings, when you don’t look or sound like the majority. Sheth shows that the answer lies in individual action as well as systemic change. Anjali finds a creative solution that emphatically affirms the value and magic of being different, but ideally, that fair stall would stock some diverse plates too.

Third, I’m so thankful that there’s no didactic heavy-handed message about tolerance or diversity blah blah bloop bloop. Anjali rides away from her bully after shutting him down, because “She had places to go and didn’t have time for foolishness.” Making fun of a person for being different is pretty dumb! Bullying is mean! By making the case for inclusion as a common sense argument, Sheth manages to teach without the preach.

The illustrations by Jessica Blank deserve a list of praise-worthy reasons of their own. For starters, Anjali is pictured as deep brown rather than beige or cream with a spot of tea. There is so much shadism in the South Asian community that it feels like an active design choice to have a dark skinned protagonist. Also, I love how the illustrations  incorporate cultural information subtly yet tellingly.  Anjali is an Indian American girl, and her room is a purple wonderland of soccer ball, spaceships, dinosaurs, microscope, skatergirl action figure–and a set of tablas. Look at this young tabalchi!

Yup, any kid between the ages of 5 and 8 crossing my orbit is going to have this book thrust into their arms, with a demand they begin reading right away. (Pre-readers will receive an instant storytime.) Sheth says she’s planning a series around Anjali; I can’t wait for the one where Anjali’s thirty-five and running for President.

Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen

For many years, my email tagline read “Obedient women seldom make history.” (Now I’m older and have zero edge, and so my email tagline is my LinkedIn profile.) As we know, women have always been expected to obey social rules even if the said rules diminish, confine, and humiliate them. So Ann Shen’s book about women who didn’t obey the rules and (hence) went on to change the world seemed like *exactly* my thing.

 

Shen is an L.A. based illustrator and author, and Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World (Chronicle Books, 2016) is her first book. It’s a super-long listicle featuring a hundred daring women; each woman gets a write-up about her achievements and her bad-assery, and a full-page color illustration too.

The merits of this concept need no further puffing–either you fully endorse and appreciate such a book, or you have no beating heart. A++ for the idea, the timeliness, and the presentation. The book is beautifully produced, and I went through it several times just because it’s so fun to flip the pages and see the pictures. This book would make a great gift for older girls (and boys!) to teach them about figures in history who are all too often overlooked. And to teach them art. Ann Shen has more painterly talent in her eyelash than I possess in my entire being, and her illustrations are awesome (if verging on prettified).

I’m also delighted to have learned, via this book, about a couple of amazing women, like Khutulun (b. 1206), a Mongolian princess who wrestled with her suitors and defeated them all. Ching Shih led a pirate fleet known as the “Terror of South China,” and retired happily at 35 to run a gambling house. Some of the other women I learned about weren’t as impressive, but were intriguing nonetheless.

The main issue for a reader/reviewer with this book of this sort is with the inclusion–and omission– of their picks. Shen includes the caveat that the book isn’t “a definitive list of the one hundred bad girls in history”, but I have a whole bunch of issues with her selection criteria. First, I wish she’d relied less on her personal research interests and adopted more rigorous and objective standards. The book features Lilith (Adam’s wife pre-Eve in the Garden of Eden), but includes no other figures from any other (religious) myths at all. C’mon, I would totally expect to see Kali, the baddest of them all, with her skull necklace and blood-smeared sword on the front pages. As for figures from Egyptian or Mayan or Native American myths? A big Nope from this book.

Which brings me to my second issue–Shen’s choices are way too Eurocentric/Western for a book with the subheading “100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World”. There isn’t a single South Asian woman apart from Malala; South Asia is a quarter of the world’s population, y’all! No Native American women either. And as you probably guessed, Africa and South America aren’t exactly well-represented in these pages.

Also, there’s a lot of women who did something in fashion. While I don’t grudge any of the 100 women their space, I’m going out on a limb here and affirming that several didn’t seem quite as deserving as, say, Rosalind Franklin. Vandana Shiva. Mary Shelley. Zaha Hadid. Mary Anning. Rigoberta Menchu. Grace Hopper. Ela Bhatt. Caroline Herschel. Razia Sultana. Viola Desmond. Wangari Mathai. Jane Goodall. Miriam Makeba.  Ursula Le Guin. Sacagawea. Maybe I’m just too old for this book?

Also, Shen exhibits her chosen hundred in chronological order of their birth, starting with Lilith and ending with Malala, and the only way to find out whether someone is included or not is by checking the contents page for their names. There’s no alphabetical index, or even grouping by field. Do you know when Audrey Hepburn was born? How about Indira Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Prepare to manually scroll down the contents list each time. (And none of the above women are included, btw.) And half the women featured were born after 1895–that’s a very heavy skew in a book claiming to cover women “throughout history”.

Finally: I wish there’d been a bit more thought given to the write-ups. Margaret Thatcher’s description is much too kind. The entry for Rosa Parks is so determinedly non-offensive that there isn’t a smidge of emotional resonance in the read. In sum, this book is an entertaining but over-simplified look at some interesting women; for a reader in this day and age, that amounts to a bit of a missed opportunity.  I’m hoping for a second, expanded, edition–this time with less Disney and more depth.

END

Note: this book isn’t for young kids. There’s mention of rape, seduction, murder, and dismemberment…women’s history, you know.

Bend your Knees & Do your Best by Kalyani

I’ve always wondered what *really* happens in those Bangalore IT companies housing serried ranks of coder bees, and so, when Bend your Knees… crossed my radar, I was intrigued. The author’s pitch email went, “Set in the world of the (in)famous Indian IT industry, Bend your Knees is a humorous, anger-filled, slice-of-life drama about the Indian quest for ever-elusive happiness. It uses the tale of Hiranyakashyap to explore how many of us componentize that state-of-being in order to make it achievable, and how that very fact gets in the way of us achieving it.”

Debut author, brown sister, mysterious mononymous pen name, fun cover art, intriguing mythology/philosophy reference, single working woman protagonist…woo-hoo, I was in! The book seemed to offer a self-aware take on the surreality of the Indian IT industry.  Did it fulfill its promise?

Bend your Knees… is set in an IT firm in Bangalore, India, where the protagonist, 40-year-old Kalyani, works as a Senior Data Architect, having risen steadily through the ranks over the years. But now it’s retrenchment season, and the unfortunate Kalyani must fire several subordinates while quaking for her own job security. The signal for imminent unemployment is a backup email–a “mail that informed the receiver that backup software was going to be installed on the receiver’s laptop to enable the automatic backup of critical data.” Even as she’s checking her email every minute, Kalyani hits her mid-life crisis head-on–worrying her stomach cramps are cancer symptoms, figuring out her relationship with God, getting a toe-hold onto the impossible Bangalore property ladder, and managing her aging parents. Kalyani’s confidante in all her adventures is Hiranyakashyap, the Asura who wrangled a boon from God for immortality, by wording the implausible conditions of his death in the most watertight legalese possible. (Of course, God found a way to kill him anyway.)  Kalyani finds God capricious, and all-to-eager to extract a price for favors granted, and has hence learned to hedge all her requests for success or money,  depending instead on Hiranya for advice.

Then Kalyani’s manager asks her to write a thought paper on social media analytics–a maddeningly vague topic about which no-one knows anything, but for which everyone’s eager to take credit at the end. The paper rapidly becomes a hot potato for poor Kalyani, whose dealings with the corporate honchos become increasingly surreal, ultimately culminating in a wild trip to Japan.

Will  that thought-paper ever get written? Will Kalyani learn to take control of her life, or will she fail in her quest for happiness and commit suicide by rat-poison bonda?

The author Kalyani (whose identity is a secret, at least to me) is obviously well-informed about the industry, acutely observant, and possesses a nicely-developed sense of the absurd. The highlights of the book for me were the fascinating tidbits about Indian corporate culture, like the women who wear a “compliance bindi”– a dot small enough pass unnoticed, yet visible enough to appease traditionalists. There’s the flagrantly self-sacrificing woman employee who declares she’ll quit her job so the main bread-winners, aka husbands, can keep theirs.  (Proudly single Kalyani gives her the eyeball of death.) There’s the shift-the-shame rose, wherein those who’ve been laid-off give their senior managers roses; the act of giving and taking the rose is supposed to symbolize the transfer of shame between the fired and firer. Ooogh. The author perfectly captures the marriage of  capitalism’s excesses with the Indian predilection for sentimentality, and I chuckled aloud several times at the absurdity of it all.

Kalyani-the-author also has a great ear for dialogue.

“Kalyani, Jahnavi is making me to go to Dhaka!” he wailed. […]

“You mean she is asking you to go to Hyderabad.”

“No! No! That position has already been filled. Now there is another opening in Dhaka and she is making me to-“

“Asking you to go there,” I rushed in hastily.

“Not asking. Making,” he almost sobbed. “What will I eat there? I am a vegetarian!”

And now, for the negative part of my review. Surely the publishing house could have hired an experienced hand to work with an author who’s obviously great at plot, observation, and dialogue, while tightening the prose? Kalyani-the-author inclines towards detailed, adverb-laden internal monologues, and has the typical debut writer’s tendency to over-narrate. The latter is very detrimental to pacing, as any editor should know. Here’s a sample page:

I don’t blame the author one byte (she’s a debut writer), but the editor? Well, send him that backup mail already. Kalyani’s written a book that’s heartfelt, insightful, and adds substantially to the conversation about the topic, but oh, if there’s to be a reprint, this 535-page shaggy beast needs to get on a diet. Watch it then zoom up the best-seller lists.