#413 - Isapuram Tales : Lights, Camera, Action and Other Stories
by Anita Satyajit and illustrated by Manoj Vijayan
“Isapuram Tales : Lights, Camera, Action and Other Stories” by Anita Satyajit and illustrated by Manoj Vijayan. A charming set of four stories from the fictional town of Isapuram featuring a ten year old bubbly girl called Diya and Baba, a spiritual teacher who clears all her doubts and confusions.
This is book two of the “Isapuram Tales”series, the first one (Isapuram Tales : The Chameleon Effect and Other Stories) of which we had read recently. The protagonist is ten year old Diya who looks up to Baba, her next door neighbour for answering all the questions that she comes up with. Diya keeps getting millions of them in her head and has a wild imagination like any inquisitive child does :) Baba is the perfect person to calm her down and answer her queries in a simple enough manner that she could understand.
The book has four insightful stories. The first one talks about why we listen to god and how we can do that to decide what we need to do. The second story talks about how we can handle anger and not take it out on others. The third one talks about the loss of a loved one and how we can try to shed our fear about death. The fourth story which gives the title to the book is about how we often end up creating a story in our minds about why a person did something or behaved in a particular way without knowing the reality. Read the delightful book to know about what Diya gets to learn from talking to Baba.
My almost nine year old cherished reading the book with me. He had already read the first book from the series and loved it. The endearing characters of Diya and Baba made him look forward to reading this book. Difficult and sensitive topics have been made accessible to a child through these stories in an engaging manner. My son was all ears and seemed to appreciate Baba’s words of wisdom to put Diya’s mind to ease. Baba’s patience in explaining these topics to Diya and their friendship were what we liked the most. The stories make one feel a sense of hope and gratitude towards their lives. The book led us to discuss about what our thoughts about these topics were.
I must mention my thanks to the author Anita here for her help in trying to provide solace to us through one of these stories two years ago when my father passed away. It was the most difficult phase of our lives and my son was finding it hard to bear the loss of his favourite companion. Although we hardly knew each other, Anita sent me the story electronically to help us tide through. A gesture I found very endearing given that we had interacted just a few times on a Facebook group over my book review posts which I had just started doing. I must confess though that I was in no state of mind to absorb what was in the story at that time. But reading the story again now seemed a bit helpful in soothing the mind.
Recommended Age
The book is apt for children aged 7 and above.
Reasons to Read
Sometimes there is a need for some simple and delightful stories which settle the minds of children especially when they are read at bedtime. This is a perfect match for that! Baba and Diya’s characters leave one with hope and pleasure of finding joys around us.
Disclaimer - We received this book from the author, Anita Satyajit, for review. Thank you for sending across the book Anita!