Start 'Em Young: Five Reads For Your Little One To Get Lost In These Holidays

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There’s nothing quite like reading about holiday adventures when on vacations and other holiday breaks. Here’s our list of five (and a few more) books that celebrate travel, escapades, and mayhem.

3 Novels: A Summer Adventure, The Hidden Treasure, The Only Witness

Buy 3 Novels: Summer Adventure, Hidden Treasure Book

Shashi Deshpande’s story is a hark back to the British books we read. In A Summer Adventure, a sulky Ravi comes from Bombay to spend his summer holidays with his cousins Polly, Minu and Dinu. He soon cheers up when he finds out that small-town life is not that dull, especially when they have a string of burglaries. The children go up to a tower to see its clock being wound, suspicious lights and noises in a big house, and eat long breakfast picnics under the shade of a mango tree.

Author: Shashi Despande

Publisher: Puffin

Price: INR 229 (on Amazon)

Bonus Read: 4 Heroes and a Green Beard by Narayan Gangopadhyay, translated from Bengali by Swati Bhattacharji, a late 19th-century detective novel about four friends who head to Darjeeling for a holiday, but stumble upon a mystery instead.

Jungu The Baiga Princess By Vithal Rajan

Buy Jungu, the Baiga Princess

It’s Easter break, and Sunil is sent off to stay with his Uncle Vish in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh. His teacher thinks he will have fun, he will go to “wonderful forests” with animals “and tribes who have been there as long, as long as history.” Sunil meets Jungu, an Adivasi girl who lives in the forest. There are threats looming–rehabilitation of the tribe and poachers. A story about livelihood security, the urban-rural divide, and the wonders of the natural world and the dangers it faces.

Author: Vithal Ranjan 

E-book Price: INR 200

Bonus Read: Also check out Ambushed by Nayanika Mahtani and Ranthambore Adventure by Deepak Dalal. Both are set in the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, where children decide to protect their forests.

Let’s Go Time Travelling! Life In India Through The Ages

Buy Let's Go Time Travelling: Life in India Through the Ages

This one’s not really a vacation story, but hey, if people can take staycations, then time travelling also counts. Stories unfurl across different ages–Early India–the Harappan Civilisation and the Indo-Aryans, Ancient India–the Mauryas and Guptas and the Pallavas and Cholas, Medieval India–the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, and British India–the people and rulers. The book is really the story of people–what they ate, how they put on make-up, what games they played, and how they travelled.

Author: Subhadra Sen Gupta

Publisher: Puffin, Penguin India 

Price: INR 143 (on Amazon)

Bonus Read: Andaleeb Wajid’s Tamanna Trilogy, a young adult book about romance and time travel.

Rusty And The Magic Mountain

Buy Rusty and the Magic Mountain Book

What happens when Rusty comes back from a long hiatus? He sets off to listen to the call of the “adventure wind” of course. And since he really can’t explore the mysterious Witch Mountain all by himself, he recruits the help of his friend Popat Lal and a wrestler called Pitamber. There’s plenty of weird stuff and people to be encountered–from one-eyed caretakers to blood-thirsty cats, and beautiful damsels and malicious queens.

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publisher: Puffin

Price: INR 143 (on Amazon)

Bonus Read: Swami and Friends by R.K. Laxman.

Survival Tips For Lunatics

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Changez and his brother Taimur (better known as Timmy) have gone camping with their parents to Chandrakup, one of the largest volcanoes in South Asia. The next morning, they wake up to find that their parents have packed up and left them behind by mistake. The 12-year-old Changez is left in charge of his “witless” nine-year-old brother and finds that he has larger problems to worry about. Like a talking sparrow and velociraptors, border forces, and terrorist groups. Sayan Mukherjee’s illustrations add a light touch to this fabulously fun story from Pakistan.

Author: Shandana Minhas

Publisher: Hatchett

Price: INR 108 (on Amazon)

Bonus Read: The Secret of Falcon Heights by Ranjit LalThree siblings are stuck for three months in the remote Pahadpur hill station. They discover that their neighbours are treated like social pariahs: A story of sexual violence, social stigma, and discrimination.

Pro-Tip

While Amazon is our go-to site when it comes to online shopping, there are a couple of other children-specific online bookstores as well like Eureka Books, Little Bookworms and more.