Monday, June 20, 2005
Younguncle comes to Town By Vandana Singh
- Maya Khankhoje Maya Khankhoje is one of the talented new voices in the evolving literature of science fiction and fantasy. Long dominated by Western-centric
technological positivists, speculative fiction has become more complex today --- it asks more difficult questions, takes less for granted and includes more diverse voices than ever before. However the so-called Third World is still under-represented in speculative fiction, not only in terms of setting and subject matter, but also in terms of writers and points of view that are unique to its many cultures. Maya Khankhoje's writings help fill a great void. Her bilingual (Spanish/English) anthology for children A Panther in your Dreams, will soon be published by Gyldan Edge Publishing.
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Book and Author Name:Younguncle Comes to Town By Vandana Singh
Publisher: Young Zubaan, New Delhi
Year 2004
Price: Rs. 150
Everybody should have a Chota Chacha. Vandana Singh , the author, has one, and if she doesn’t, she created one for herself and for all of us. Younguncle is a charming character who comes to town one day and turns the life of his family upside down, to the delight of the family children. Or rather, he makes them –and us- realize that upside down is really upside up, that a rainy day can be sunny to anybody with a sunny disposition, and that if we can’t wish the rain away, we might as well catch it in a tea cup and drink it to our heart’s content.
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We have all met Younguncle at one point or another in our lives. He shifts from job to job, resists his sister-in-law’s schemes to get him married off but is not above a bit of scheming of his own to save his sister, “the girl” from being married off “ to a suitable boy” which her heart finds totally unsuitable. Younguncle might be called a misfit in a success-oriented society, but children and animals recognize the purity of his soul and accept him as one of their own. His partners-in-mischief include the monkey who reads upside down, the tiger who appreciates haute cuisine, the donkey who observes humans with intelligent interest and the ghost who is, well, not really a ghost!
Younguncle Comes to Town is a must in the nursery library, so that adults can borrow it at night and enjoy a guffaw or two.
Viking Children’s books is publishing “Younguncle Comes to Town” next year, Spring 2006, in the US and UK. Right now the book is only available in India.
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