Book Review: Grow Up Messy - Middle Grade Book

I won't say I don't read children's books. If I chance upon a good children's fiction I dive right into it, simply because I find them richer in imagination.

Growing Up Messy is a heart warming story which reminded me parts of my childhood having born and brought up in a 2nd tier city of Bengal. Misry's escapades during afternoon hours truly made me connect with her. How many afternoons I must have spent doing the same! How much patience my mother would have shown to tolerate my disobedience.

Right from the character Misry to the descriptions of the world around her and the innocent naughty acts that Misry aka Messy got into reminded me of Tagore's short stories as well.

I think it fits a much wider range of readers apart from middle grade. It can be a good read for mothers because it captures psychology of children and I personally feel it also sets standards for the modern parent. Things like not over indulging your child, making your kid realise the difference between want and need. The very busy parents of today who have high purchasing ability sometimes forget that indulgence is not always the answer. A story like this can be a gentle reminder to them while they read it out as a bedtime story for the young ones.

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

Finally a book that I can call as my best read. Its a masterpiece given that I read the 50th anniversary edition and still find it as or rather more interesting than any recent fiction work. A book has perhaps hardly been written so well that readers could identify or get hooked to it after 50 years sitting so far away from America. I can think of a number of reasons for this but mostly my resonance comes due to the beautiful innocent relationship shared between Scout and Jem, a rare read revolving around sibling love. The setting of small town Maycomb and childhood being spent in greenery and summer time games and fun also plays a part. What is however a shame that bias and differentiation among citizens still remains as reality 50 years later based on race, colour or monetary status in different parts of our world.
To sum it up this is one book that I am sure I will read again! Heard a sequel is coming soon, hope to get a copy in hand, how I wish there were more works written by Harper Lee.

Dangerous Affair

Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped for breath. She gulped in some salty water before she realized that she was trapped below the sea. The corals were around her and there were tiny fish swimming by her but she had no time to admire; she was short of breath. As she struggled to untie her hands from the strong sailor knot, she kicked in every possible way to start swimming. The water was all green and blue, in some places they were extraordinarily dark, almost black. There were bright white light cutting right across all the green, blue, black in a lot of places showing her traces of sun and the direction in which she had to move in order to survive.

Only if Suzy would have been free she would have taken moments to admire all the nature's play with colours under the ocean. Right now, all she could think about was her need to untie her hands so that this does not turn out to be her last sight. If she had to choose her last sight she would rather see her daughter Mary playing happily with her ball in their lush green Romanian garden. She would want to nest in Tom's arms just one more time rather than freeze in the cold waters. Alas, people have no choice for their last sight. All they can do is think of  all the things that they love and that was exactly what Suzy was doing. She was sailing by all the faces that mattered in her life and re-living all the happy memories. But no, she can't be readying herself to die so soon. She brushed away all these thoughts and converged all her efforts into swimming to the surface of the sea. She kicked and pushed herself through the water. She didn't like the taste of salty water and she didn't want it to be the last thing in her stomach. She is a foodie, if she had to die now, she had to have warm nice food cooked in her absolutely fabulous kitchen that she had set-up so carefully through those years. If she had to die, she would rather have a nice hot roast chicken and fresh baked pie before saying adieu to the world. This was not the correct way to leave the earth, not yet.

The chill of the water was starting to get to her and she was starting to panic as she had too much water to drink, the salty acrid water of the sea that dotted her small town. She started to accept that this might be those dreaded last minutes that she didn't want them to be. But, giving up was not her nature. She pulled and stretched the rope but it only seemed to have gone tighter on her pale fragile hands. She kept cycling in the water like she had been taught in her swimming classes which she never took seriously and she did float up a bit but the ocean seemed to having an unending depth. Unless she unties her hand in the next few seconds she knows she will never breathe air above the waters again. She knows she has started crying now but cannot feel her tears as they obliterate in the brackish dark water.

Her throat seems to be choking up and her heart is beating so loud that she cannot hear anything but the continous loud thump against her chest. The water seems to be getting darker and darker and her eyes are too swollen to open anymore. She puts in her last bit by pulling her rope once more and kicks her legs sharply while trying to cry out loud. No one heard her cries as a few bubbles surfaced at the ocean surface where Clara stood to make sure that Suzy doesn't escape. Just an hour or half more and then she would grieve with Tom as he slowly becomes hers, forever.

© All Rights Reserved by Siddhangana Karmakar

Sini's Life

The morning reads and coffee kept Sini going