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An exotic and compelling adventure story that is almost impossible to put down (Reading Age 10+)
You are about to embark on a remarkable journey. It begins on the teeming streets of Kolkata, India, and will transport you across arid plains and turbulent rivers to a secret valley high in the Himalayas. Along the way you will encounter powerful spirits, both good and unspeakably evil; fantastical creatures; and a trio of intrepid travelers who will linger in your memory long after the last page of this book is turned.
In a dingy shack in the less than desirable neighborhood that he calls home 12-year-old Anand is entrusted with a conch shell that possesses mystical powers. His task is to return the shell to its rightful home many hundreds of miles away. Accompanying him are Nisha, a headstrong but resourceful child of the streets, and a mysterious man of indeterminate age and surprising resources named Abadhyatta . . .
This is fantasy of the first order; an exotic and compelling adventure story that is almost impossible to put down. It is also a significant literary achievement by a distinguished author, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
A letter from the author…
Dear Reader,
Two different wishes led me into writing The Conch Bearer. One was to create a story for my two boys to enjoy and brag about ("My mom wrote a book, and guess who the 2 heroes are named after?") The other was, in post 9/11 America, to give the children of this country a book with Indian characters—foreign, strange, brown skinned characters— a boy & a girl that seem very different from them but turn out, in their hopes & fears, not to be that different after all. Characters (I hope) that they will come to love. When you love people in books, it's a little harder to hate people like them in real life, no?
Once I started writing, though, what took over was the sheer fun of creating a story—and a story with magic in it (which I've always loved). I wove in places I know and places I've only dreamed about. Folktales and myth and cautionary stories and contemporary hardship and impossibilities and things I plain made up as I went along. When I write my adult books, there's a critic in my head pursing his lips and going, No, no, no. For the entire length of this book, I exiled him. (It was wonderful! Maybe I'll never let him back in!)
And so I now have a third & final wish: that readers will have as much fun reading The Conch Bearer as I had writing it.
Happy Reading,
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I read The Conch Bearer to our two children last year (then aged 8 and 10). We all enjoyed it and they always wanted to squeeze in a couple more pages when it was time to stop. One reviewer suggests that The Conch Bearer is merely a rehashing of Kipling - presumably comparing it to Kim. All I can say to that is I suggest the reviewer try reading Kim to a few elementary school age children and see how she does!..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Divakaruni says she wrote the book for two
reasons; firstly to give her two sons bragging rights that their mom
had written a book and two of the heroes were named after them
(sorry, I don't know which two!); and in our post 9/11 world, to
give American children a book about children who might superficially
seem very different to them, but in fact are not that different
after all.
The Conch Bearer is the first in a planned trilogy. The second
book, The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming is due to be released in
September. Unlike many series books, The Conch Bearer reaches
a satisfying conclusion in its own right.
Bibliography
The...
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