Child of Spring

February 22, 2016
Basanta, an Indian girl balanced on the edge of childhood and young adulthood, narrates Ziaâs second novel (after The Garden of My Imaan) with a vivacious voice. She lives in a hut in a small village with her parents and younger sister, begrudgingly working alongside her mother at the âBig Houseâ as a servant. A keen observer, Basanta views the world as rich with imagery; her employerâs privileged daughter, Little Bibi, can be âfiery as a mango pickle,â while a jamun tree ârained down fat berries that splattered the ground with purple.â After finding a lost ring belonging to Little Bibi, Basanta decides to keep it for herself. Guilt gives her a âworried heart,â and she slowly matures, using her good fortune to help less fortunate friends who often go hungry. While the plot moves a bit too rapidly and feels overstuffed with characters, Zia delicately explores themes of developing a sense of morality, learning the value of hard work, recognizing inequality, and empathizing with others. The author smoothly incorporates Hindi words and phrases into Basantaâs narrative and also includes a glossary. Ages 8â12.

January 15, 2016
Basanta, who splits her time between serving a rich family in her rural Indian town and playing with children less advantaged than she, gives an episodic account of several weeks of her life. The prologue introduces Basanta's lack of enthusiasm for her deceased grandmother's idea that "A song from the heart is more golden than a nicely wrapped gift." Throughout the story, Basanta grapples with feelings of envy for people in better circumstances, as well as annoyance at her mother's generous nature. Yet, more than once, she herself shows compassion and even altruism. Basanta is a believable character whose emotions and actions reflect early adolescence in any culture. She is also clearly different from most of her Western counterparts: illiterate, with no formal education, and prone to obsessively arranging doll weddings. Her language is sprinkled with colorful, insightful similes. Unsurprisingly, Basanta's narration is dotted with Hindi words (often distractingly printed in italic type) and full of character names unfamiliar to readers not of the culture (with the doubtlessly unintentional exception of naughty Paki). It can be difficult to keep track of the many characters, and the plots and subplots are dizzying. However, Basanta's honest and often humorous account of her own foibles and near heroics will keep readers entertained while they think about wealth distinctions and absorb new information from an Indian-American author. A sweet, authentic Indian slice of middle-grade life. (glossary) (Fiction. 8-12)

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April 1, 2016

Gr 3-5-Basanta is a young girl who lives in a typical Indian busti, a community of huts, in modern-day India. Alongside her amma, her mother, she works at the Big House for the memsaab's daughter, Little Bibi. Often, Basanta wonders why it is that Little Bibi is lucky enough to live in a fine house surrounded by fine things while Basanta can only yearn for them. Then, one day, Little Bibi's ring goes missing and Basanta is sure she is suspected of theft! After building up the situation in her head, Basanta is let off the hook when Little Bibi receives a new, even finer ring for her birthday. Although the plot eventually circles back around to the original (found) ring, the novel as a whole focuses on Basanta's capers with the young inhabitants of her busti and how she might be more like Little Bibi than she imagined. Through her interactions with the children who live in the huts beside hers, Basanta comes to find that her family is in a position of satisfaction, never having to go without rice in the pot, and that being able to help others is a reward in and of itself. Although the exact setting is not made explicit through the text and the language peppered into the narrative and dialogue is not immediately identified, context clues and a glossary make clarifying easy. VERDICT A solid, diverse purchase for middle grade collections.-Brittany Staszak, Eisenhower Public Library District, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2016
Basanta lives in a busti, a community of huts, in India. She and her mother work as servants, and Basanta often chafes at her treatment by her rich teenage mistress. Through varying relationships with other kids of her village, many more impoverished than she, Basanta realizes some important truths in this satisfying everyday story of modern Indian life. A Hindi glossary is appended.

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)