#414 - Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday

by Shabnam Minwalla

“Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday” by Shabnam Minwalla. Published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger. A hilarious and fun filled story of Nimmi Daruwala turning twelve in a bizuper (bizarre+super) manner.

This is the third book of the Nimmi series. The book starts on the morning of Nimmi’s twelfth birthday. She is super excited about the new mobile phone that she is going to get as gift and her birthday party scheduled a few days later. Well, Nimmi’s life is always full of adventures and disasters lurking in the shadows. There is no dull moment ever. Her mother Mrs Daruwala finds healthy non-chocolate jowar banana bites for her to distribute in school. Nimmi has to go through the agonising experience of taking these to school much to her consternation. To add injury to her woes, mean Alisha Dubash from her class is throwing an extravagant party in her Alibag farmhouse on the same day as Nimmi’s birthday party.

Nimmi’s new phone starts sending weird autocorrected messages and starts putting her into weird and difficult situations on quite a few occasions. Ali has signed her up for her first ever Inter-school Scrabble tournament. Nimmi is averse to competitions and just can’t handle the nervousness. To top it all, her class teacher Miss Atmaja is severely allergic to bananas which Nimmi finds out when she eats the jowar banana bite and transforms into what seems like a vampire like state. The children find it quite scary with their imagination working overtime but then some realise that she isn’t well and seek help from the school nurse. Nimmi is in a fix over so many things. Will Miss Atmaja get her expelled from school when she gets to know of the banana bites? Will Kabir attend Nimmi’s party or choose to go to Alisha’s fun and happening extravagant party? Can Nimmi come up with at least one high scoring word in the scrabble tournament and not disgrace herself? Read the book to find out all of these and how Nimmi tides over some bizarre times growing a bit olwiser (old+wiser) in the process.

My nine year old and I had a rollicking time reading the book and enjoying Nimmi’s adventures. The cheeky humour and wordplay in this book are just like the first two books in the series (“Nimmi’s Spectabulous School Days” and “Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days”) that we have read so far.  We have grown to love the series and the characters. We had fun getting to know a few new words that Nimmi learns while preparing for the scrabble tournament. The character of Sumit who is the chief mischief creator thanks to his eavesdropping and making terrible mistakes while spreading rumours of what he thinks he heard kept us laughing. We have been on a Nimmi reading spree and have just finished reading the fourth and the latest book in the series as I write this :)

Recommended Age

The book is apt for children aged 9 and above.

Reasons to Read

For a hilarious story laced with brilliant wordplay which is bound to be relatable and entertaining for every school going child :)

Where to buy from?

The publishers Talking Cub here.