When there is so much darkness in the world, should it really be kept out of children’s books?
So long as there is hope, children’s books need not shy away from reality. Pxhere
Three books that landed on my desk recently seemed to be speaking to one another. Or, at least, they got stacked in one pile because of the stories they held inside their pages.
The first one,
Bena’s Summer by Shibal Bhartiya, tells the story of a hope-filled childhood ringed with darkness. Set in the small town of Sultanpur, it paints a picture of a close-knit family against the backdrop of communal tensions, coupled with the innocence of childhood and events that threaten to topple that safe space. “This was a set of people that had seen and survived many riots before. They had lost those they loved, they had lost what they owned,” writes Bhartiya while describing young Bena’s extended family.