Book Review : Into The Unknown : How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea and Air

Title : Into The Unknown

Author : Stewart Ross

Illustrator : Stephen Biesty

Publisher : Walker Books

Age : 8+ years

Air, Water, Land - The three most fundamental requisites of life. With evolution and the development of complex brain cells, the human beings continued climbing the hierarchy of needs step by step. Once the faculties to satisfy the basic needs were developed and honed, the eagerness to know the environment arose and this led many inquisitive minds to think, imagine and question beyond what they could see. Their undying curiosity led them to take the never travelled paths, their determination equipped them to surpass mighty hurdles on their ways and their indomitable spirits eventually made them pioneers. The names of these individuals qualified to be engraved in the annals of history among the mortals who became immortals. As the author puts it - "The courage and determination of the individual men and women in this book are why we know so much about the beauty, majesty and mystery of our world."

Besides being the most essential life creating and sustaining elements - Land, Air and Water also provide the conduits to the explorers in their quest to know the unknown.

The book begins with the adventure of Pytheas the Greek - who sailed to the Arctic Circle in 340 BC in a very primitive boat without even having the very basic compass for assistance, to the year 1969 when history was made by the crew of Apollo 11 which landed on moon. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay do not need any introduction, their names have almost become synonymous to the mighty Mt. Everest. Through the stories behind each adventure and the vivid details presented with the illustrations, the readers actually feel like - sailing with Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean, circumnavigating the world with Ferdinand Magellan, crossing the Indian Ocean with Admiral Zheng, experiencing putting the first foot on moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and many more such exhilarating highs.

The commendable of this book is how the content is arranged and depicted through illustrations. Each adventure comes with the zoomed in map of the specific region from where the journey began, the detailed route that the explorer took, the various navigation tools used on the way, the different gears used and the kind of boats/ships/airships/gondolas/rockets that took them closer to their dreams.

The cover page of the book is a complete delight. It is actually a folded world map and on opening it, you get a full view of all the significant explorations with exact paths charted out. A great book that gives detailed information about how the efforts of some of the adventurous minds help put the puzzle pieces of our world together for us to understand and savor.

Image Source : GoodReads

Book Review : Water Dance

Title : Water Dance

Author and Illustrator : Thomas Locker

Publisher : Harcourt

Is it a picture book or a book full of text? Is it a children's book or otherwise? Is it a prose or verse? Is it a science or an art book?

The answer to all these questions is very simple - this book belongs to a category selectively reserved for the ones which satisfy all definitions yet defy any one description, which impart so much but do the same so very subtly, which work wonders but it is difficult to replicate the experience every time, which reiterate the known facts but offer the unmatched freshness in doing so.

So if you have picked this book up, you are in for a wonderful adventure and a pleasant surprise.

The life blood of our planet, of each and every breathing creature - WATER takes us along on a journey of its life. It falls from sky as rain, it cascades as mountain stream, it spirals down a mountain cliff making a waterfall, it stays still in a lake, it winds through valleys as river, it rushes to meet the big expanse of ocean, it rises in the air forming mist, it floats in the sky as clouds, or it thunders furiously. The various dance forms and the moves of the water create an endless cycle that it keeps following incessantly.

Displaying its unparalleled virtues - the wisdom of adapting, the acumen of transforming, the poise of getting transformed, the vulnerability in surrendering - water assumes the role of a great mentor of all times.

Water, in its varied avatars, influences so many and gets impacted by so many. On its journey through the world, it experiences and expresses different emotions - from fury of storm, calmness of lake to free-spiritedness of ocean waves.

An exquisite book which has poetic text and mesmerizing oil paintings, each one worth getting picture framed. A really beautiful way to introduce water cycle while subtly highlighting the profound philosophy of life and how much we all need to learn from this silent but powerful element of life.

Image Courtesy : Barnes&Noble

Celebration Time on Saffron Tree

Saffron Tree turns 5 today and to mark this milestone, the celebrations will span from 23rd Oct to 30th Oct.

This annual festival is known by the name : CROCUS Celebrate Reading Of Culturally Unique Stories

The theme for this year is - 5 Essential Elements - Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Space

Book Review : Sikandar

Title : Sikandar

Author : Binayak Banerjee (Translated By Soma Ghosh)

Pubisher : Westland

The one feeling which will remain with the readers after having read the complete book, is that of utter confusion. The book begins by introducing the ten characters who are part of the reality show on the format of Big Boss or Big Brother. I was paying extra attention to the part where the characters were introduced but despite all eyes, other senses and mind into the book, I lost track of the characters soon after the fourth one entered the scene.

In the times when a whole deluge of reality shows are dished out to the viewers through multitude of channels, it is not difficult to understand the background of the story. 10 contestants have to spend 68 days together in a house - Jatugriha. The motto of the reality show is 'Jo Jita Wohi Sikandar'( the person who wins will be the Sikandar). The winner has to survive all eliminations which are executed by public voting system. No doubt, the story demanded the character sketches of the ten participants but one thing is sure, unveiling them back to back did not help. With each passing chapter, the confusion keeps building up to such an extent that at one point I felt, the words mouthed by one character could easily have been uttered by another. The characters got all mixed up barring 2-3. Desperate attempts have been made to reach under the skin of the characters who hail from very diverse backgrounds and different walks of life - a teacher, an actor, a hermit, a prostitute, an industrialist, a politician and some more.

The author has tried to put all participants on the driver seat one by one to take the journey forward, but Kanishka Sengupta, the actor and Lovely, the prostitute - hog maximum spotlight. As the show progresses, some old skeletons leave the closets and come out in the public, some hidden secrets are bared while true love kindles in the hearts of two inmates. Another major put off was overdose of philosophical conversations happening in the house.

I am sure the story could have been salvaged somewhere but it leaves the readers completely cheated and me questioning, why would I not watch a Big Boss episode instead of taking the burden to read through this book?

In my opinion, the good books are not the ones which make the readers wreck their brains in trying to make sense out of the story. Unfortunately the story of Sikandar does not go anywhere and the readers keep waiting and wondering - what is the point behind writing this book. Are such books written to just test the patience of readers - whether they can finish reading it from cover to cover? Cannot seem to find a single reason why any one should read it even once. As a book reviewer, I do feel happy that I am actually doing a service to people in my own humble way - dissuading them from some not so readable literature.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com.

Book Review : Faces In The Water

Title : Faces In The Water

Author : Ranjit Lal

Publisher : Puffin

ISBN : 978-0-143-33106-3

I came to know about this book when it was among the shortlisted books in the Children's section, for the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards 2010 and then this book was adjudged the best in that category. The other competitors in the same category being :

Mr. Oliver's Diary by Ruskin Bond (reviewed here)

At Least A Fish by Anushka Ravishankar (reviewed here)

The Fang of Summoning by Giti Chandra

Koni - The Story of a Champion by Moti Nandy (reviewed here)

Sahyadri Adventure : Anirudh Dream by Deepak Dalal

Sahyadri Adventure : Koleshwar's Secret by Deepak Dalal

Needless to say, I really wanted to read it and the excerpts were very promising too.

The book addresses one of the shameful ills that is crippling our Indian society - the preference for male child and the fanaticism carried forward to extremely inhumane acts like female infanticide.

The very prosperous and affluent Diwanchand family is proud of having only sons in their lineage and they owe this special honour to the magical water from the well which is located near their ancestral house. The 15-year old son of this family Gurmeet once gets to spend a few days in the that house and wants to explore the area on his own especially the very famous well. But what does he see in the well water, his own reflection, no. There are three faces staring back at him from the well water - and those three faces belong to three girls. Then begins the journey of unraveling the mystery behind those faces and what do they have to do with the water being magical which blesses the family with only sons progeny. Are Gurmi and the girls together able to reach the depth of the mystery and do they get to influence the attitude of their male child obsessed parents?

Overall a fast paced, fun filled book which manages to address a serious topic in a lighter tone. Though an adult topic, it is handled in a manner which makes it appropriate for young adults too and actually this is a good strategy because the young adults of today are potential responsible citizens of tomorrow. So by educating them now, there is high probability that such diseases could eventually be eradicated from our society for good. The author has tried to spice the story up by including sufficient funny incidents and moments in the narrative and the magic of cyber world and connectivity are used as aids to bring home the point to the new tech savy generation. There is novelty in the way the inexistent world becomes alive with just connecting a few wires but slowly the same becomes repetitive and loses its charm. I found myself skipping those portions on a couple of occasions because they were hardly moving the story forward, rather they were mere diversions on the otherwise smoothly flowing narrative. These are the portions where the book tends to lose its objective. But otherwise a well written piece, with right amount of sensitivity and emotions that such a topic deserves.

I just hope the attempts of such books start showing some results so that we get to live in a free society which has no shameful acts to hide and no guilt to overcome.

Interview with Leela Gour Broome

Leela Gour Broome completely impressed me with her very first book - Flute In The Forest (reviewed here) and it was a dream come true when she contacted me after having read the review of the book here.

She gladly accepted the offer to be interviewed so that the readers get to know more about her and her experience of being an author.

1. Is the story of 'Flute in the Forest' purely fictional or is it inspired by some real life characters, incidents or experiences?

Flute in the Forest is purely fictional. It has however been inspired by my years living on the tea estates, and several trips through the forests of South India with my own family as well as with friends, over the past 35 years.

2. What all research did you do to write a story which has detailed account of forest, animals, lifestyles and customs of some tribes inhabiting that area?




With years of experience in forest areas I had little need to do any further research about the forest I wrote about, its flora and fauna. The lifestyles and customs of tribes in most Indian forest areas will be similar, give and take their eating/ living habits, as a lot depends on the vegetation there.




3. How has been your journey of being an author so far? What has been the most satisfying part of the experience of writing?




The 'journey' as an author has been wonderful. Firstly, a lifelong dream has been achieved, it was my ambition to write since I was barely 15 years old, time and family constraints made the delay, but it was always at the back of my mind. The most satisfying part of the experience has been seeing my first book finally in print. Of course, learning about the entire publishing business has been an eye opener as well.




4. You mentioned that you live on a farm. How significantly that environment inspires you in giving words to your thoughts?




Living on our farm , and running our nature and environment camps for 16 years nurtured my understanding of YA 12+ generation, their way of thought, and I pretty soon realized there was an enormous dearth of books relevant to this age group.




5. I read that you have written three books and 'Flute in the Forest' is one of them. When are you planning to get the other two books published? What are those books based on?




I have written 3 books, but the Flute story was the first to be edited by me over and over again, till I was happy I could not do any more to the story, and certain it would find itself a publisher! (It did!) The second book I have completed two months ago, and its in the process of being read through by editors of a publishing house. And the third needs a lot of changes made to it, as I'm not satisfied with it at the present moment.....

There are other stories I plan to write but would like to stay with the YA 12+ generation.




6. What kind of story would you want to write next and for which age group?




All my stories will deal with life and times in India, as I'm most familiar with this country, having lived here my entire life. We have such diversity here, nothing on earth can give an author such a massive choice of subjects, lifestyles, communities, religions, events, thought processes!




7. Who is your favourite among the Indian authors writing children's literature?




I used to read Manjula Padmanabhan, but of late prefer American and writers from the UK, of whom there are many. I do NOT much care for science fiction, or books on magic, magicians, etc.




8. Could you please share your experience of the process of getting the written work published? How easy/difficult is this process. Which kind of books do you find missing in the children's category in India?




My experience with getting my book published was long, and quite painful. Many many rejections, much editing, many more rejections, not enough email addresses to choose from, and many Publishers not finding YA lucrative enough to make one story go far!! Today's writers haven't much clue about either the market or the target they're writing for, and the usual money spinner seems to be illustrated books for the very young, so this age group is I feel totally neglected. We certainly need a larger number of YA authors here.

Thanks Leela !

Book Review : Out Of Place In Time And Space

Title : Out of Place in Time and Space

Author : Lamont Wood

Publisher : New Page Books

ISBN : 978-1-60163-178-7

'Out of Place in Time and Space' is a delightful read highlighting the things, incidents and situations from the past which resemble the ones that happened or were invented many years later. How is it possible to see things in the past that look similar to the things in the present? The picture of children holding toy helicopters, toy airplanes on the tombs, the presence of planetary objects in the tribal art, writer having written about the doomed gigantic ship getting into an accident with just a few lifeboats - eventually happening much later in Titanic , movie on the President creating an artificial war as a façade to distract the attention of the public away from his personal affair, the mention of Pacific Front of the World War II more than a decade before the war began, UFOs being depicted in the paintings of medieval period - are some of the examples brought into notice by Lamont Wood.

Wood offers a detailed reference list of such cases appropriately supported by illustrations from some very reliable sources like National Geographic and Scientific American. The facts of the knowledge from the past are thoroughly analyzed form logical angles and are presented in an easily readable fashion adequately stirring the curiosity of readers to know more as the book progresses.

The book does manage to initiate a few basic questions in the minds of the readers - Have we understood the time dimension completely? Is time a much more cryptic dimension than it seems to be? What else have we not understood completely ignoring it as just flight of imagination of a set of people in different times? These and some more will surely incite the curiosity of many readers.

A book, full of substance and evidences for the large array of observations that have been made throughout the book. The information packed book is not devoid of humour so it promises to give an enjoyable reading experience to the readers. This is definitely one of the books which offers 'something different' from the regular content.

The pictures and illustrations added to the text, bring out the point much more effectively.

Book Review : A Waiting Wave

Title : A Waiting Wave

Author : Kulpreet Yadav

Pubisher : Cedar Books

A Waiting Wave is a love story of Harry and Kareena, who are confronted with a rough terrain in their married life not too long after they took their vows to be in the relationship. Harry decides to handle the situation by silently exiting from the scene for some time with an aim to introspect.

Most of the ingredients that are typically found in any melodramatic love saga find a place in the story - passionate love, another person vying for heroines attention, short-tempered husband, regular complaints of a working wife and jealous spouse. Tsunami - the natural disaster is also appended to the potpourri and the couple in question is caught completely unawares. But sometimes it does take a mightier jolt for mere mortals like us to realize the pettiness of issues in broader scheme of things.

But unfortunately none of these ingredients make the readers connect with the characters or feel for them the way any love story should.

An ordinary love story, very simplistically told, which moves at a constant pace without attempting to soar high anywhere or dipping down too low. Readers would not be able to take much from the story and the impact will end with the last page of the book. The detailed information about the Andaman and Nicobar islands and the native triabals is interesting and sounds very authentic, which shows the sufficient groundwork that the author must have done to write authoritatively about the same. In my opinion, the main story is not strong enough to hold the attention of the readers. On some occasions the side subplots gain more prominence in the absence of an engaging plot.

What is good about the book is that it is free of all sorts of mistakes - spelling, grammatical, typos so I would say the editing job is done well. But the weak plot can make the book go only this far. Read it once, if you must.

Book Review : I Remember My Circus

Title : I Remember My Circus (Kindle Edition)

Author : Tom S. Figueiredo

Illustrator : Sidney Falcao

'I Remember My Circus' is a story of an ill-fated magical town carrying an open secret. Most families living in this town have one or the other member who turns into an animal. The story starts with a girl working in a circus whose special feat is that she transforms into a gorilla at specific time of the day but this particular day seems to be far from other regular days especially for the gorilla girl and for the people who have come to see this live transformation in the circus.

That particular night, the narrator who is the 10-year old boy experiences the magic of kindness and the wonders it can create. Soon after that the circus is wound up and every single trace of the circus is magically wiped out of the place. Incidentally the little boy gets to witness the secret of sudden appearance and vanishing of the circus which nobody else knew. And he decides to be a part of the circus by not sharing the secret.

The author Tom S. Figueired aptly brings out the imagination and inquisitiveness of a child's mind. The story is very sensitively and poignantly narrated. Great imagination, fresh idea and very creative execution. The illustrations done in water colours are simply gorgeous. However, I felt the appropriateness with the text is not maintained in the illustrations. The 10-year old boy is shown as a small toddler and pictures showing the mother carrying him in her arms look somewhat unrealistic.

Another important thing, the readers should not be misguided by the fact that since this is a picture book so is appropriate for very young children only. The little children will surely enjoy the colourful illustrations but the idea of the story is very mature and may get lost on them. So this book can be read and fully understood by anybody of 10+ years age.

Book Review : Death By China

Title : Death By China

Author : Peter Navarro and Greg Autry

Publisher : Prentice Hall

ISBN : 978-0-13-218023-8

'Death by China' focuses on how following a meticulously systematic approach, China is attempting to cripple the economy of America under the pretense of 'free trade'. And in this whole process the defense of the country is also getting compromised to a significant degree. The book exposes the stark reality behind the glittering exterior and offers an eye opener for all.

The authors Peter Navarro and Greg Autry talk about the multi-pronged attack adopted by China and its policies on every feasible front - be it currency manipulation, espionage, capturing diverse markets, destroying jobs or pumping poison in the name of medicines, food or drugs. Rules and regulations of free trade are openly violated, ethics are disregarded, principles are conveniently tweaked and surprisingly not much has been done to combat this trend so far. I found the second and third sections the most interesting parts of the book, in which China's gradual domination on resources of Earth and that of outer space are discussed. China has all sorts of weapons in its artillery to accomplish the task of treacherous onslaught master minded by the corrupt Chinese leaders. After having discussed the threats and warning signs that America is facing from the venomous dragon, the authors move on to suggest some clear and workable actions that the US could adopt to safeguard its interests.

The book is a very well written piece of writing, based on thorough research and detailed analysis. The chapters and sub topics are neatly organized in a logical fashion. True to its title 'Confronting the Dragon - A Global Call to Action', the book does motivate the readers that something should be done sooner than later to eradicate the termite kind attack which is fast weakening the flourishing economic tree of the US.

However, on a couple of occasions in the narrative, the authors sound too opinionated and in order to accentuate the overall impact of the text they have not abstained from attempting to sensationalize the same. I feel the statistics and well researched piece of writing speak much louder than just the aggressive adjectives. The facts should always be presented in a completely matter-of-factly manner, keeping the personal opinions and views of the presenter out of the picture.