It’s an out and out fun read and to tell as a story to them. This book is a perfect Indian fairytale in current times with an allegory to censorship and curtailing freedom of speech and thus, making it have so many undercurrents. The character names (Princess Batcheat, Prince Bolo, Gup city, Chup city, General Kitab, Butt, Khattam-shud, the list goes on and on) were in Hindi, so non-Hindi speaking people may find it a little non-relatable but the meaning of each word as a name is mentioned at the book end. Now, I am glad it was that way for once I really got in the pace of reading the book, I loved it. I finally got around to completing it on Mahabaleshwar trip in Oct ’18, my first touristy trip with baby and there I was stuck with bad signal, no kindle/ hardcopy books and only this book to keep me company.

In fact I do not even remember reading any Indian book for children in the recent past (other than what I had read when I was myself a kid – champak, nandan, nanhe samrat). In retrospect, I think it took time for I was yet to get accustomed to its characters (read character names) for this was unlike any other book I had read. And you know, I only picked it up because of its glowing reviews after I discussed in my reading group about not liking any Salman Rushdie book till date. It had taken me months to complete this book (goodreads tells me I started reading it on May 28, 2018). I am writing the review of this book Haroun and the Sea of Stories pretty late for I was still thinking how exactly to pen down my thoughts for this book.

Haroun book