#417 - Nimmi’s Crawful Camping Days
by Shabnam Minwalla
“Nimmi’s Crawful Camping Days” by Shabnam Minwalla. Published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger. A hilarious story of how Nimmi begins grade 7 with a crawful (crazy+awful) camping trip.
This is the fourth and latest book in the Nimmi series. Nimmi has survived a tough year in grade 6. So many disasters like jumping spiders, bursting bean bags and jowar banana bites have created rifts between the students. Now the school principal, Mr Bakshi, wants to try and repair the bonds as he calls it. He arranges to send the entire class to a camp on the outskirts of Mumbai before they begin grade 7 in the school. He hopes that they will all play team-building games and learn to be united. He thinks that they will all start bonding together after the trip.
Nimmi and her classmates shudder at the prospect of a camp outside Mumbai in the monsoon season. Their camp is to be in a forested area and the children are worried. Everyone is sure that a serial killer is on the loose with their imagination running wild. Nimmi’s mother has made her carry an ancient lumpy sleeping bag in an Amazon Fresh plastic bag. This makes Sumit (who is Nimmi’s chief tormentor and bullies her) think that she is carrying food in the bag which is against the camp rules. After all no one wants bears or any other creatures lurking in the dark to come to their tents for the food. Added to this a vegetarian hating cannibal seems to be on the prowl as per some folks. All of this due to a boy’s attempt to write a letter to the principal and trying to use complicated words and ending up causing a big misunderstanding :) It starts raining at the camp site adding to everyone’s woes. With hunger pangs, a sense of dread, awful tentmates and a tent collapse, Nimmi is being tested to the brink. Can she and her classmates survive the ordeal and get back to their homes in one piece? Read this hilarious book to find out how the camping experience turns out for the children.
My nine year old and I had a jolly good time reading this book. The drama and imagination of the children was too good. We just couldn’t stop laughing as we read the book and thought of how the Amazon Fresh plastic bag played an important role in all the proceedings. Rohan and Sumit’s antics as well as the over active imagination of the children were some of the other highlights. Of course it was a harrowing experience for most of the people who were in the camp but then it was too funny for us. The cheeky humour and brilliant wordplay from the series continues in this book as well just like the previous books (“Nimmi’s Spectabulous School Days”, “Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days” and “Nimmi’s Bizuper Birthday”) that we have read so far.
Recommended Age
The book is apt for children aged 9 and above.
Reasons to Read
For an entertaining and hilarious story with some brilliant wordplay that children are going to enjoy and relate to very well like the rest of the books from the series :)
Where to buy from?
The publishers Talking Cub here.
Disclaimer - We received this book from the publisher, Talking Cub, for review. Thank you to Tanu, from Talking Cub, for sending across the book!