(Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond, Book 1)
Scholastic Press, 2018, Intermediate Fiction, 368 p.
Kiran has always been a little embarrassed by her parents. While she just wants to fit in, they persist in emphasizing her Bengali Indian heritage. They cook weird food, have a weird yard, and, worst of all, make her dress up like an Indian princess every Halloween, which is also her birthday. The year she turns 12 she decides to put her foot down. She is just about to tell her parents she will be a vampire for Halloween, thank you very much, when instead of finding her parents at home, she finds a raging demon tearing up her kitchen. She is "rescued" from the demon, called a rokkhosh, by two young men who claim to be princes, and starts on a crazy adventure in the world where Indian mythology is real.
This is another great choice for those who like Rick Riordan's earlier Percy Jackson series. Kiran is a gutsy heroine who gradually comes to appreciate who, and what, she really is. The two princes are also appealing characters, and the reader wonders how the relationship between them and Kiran will develop in later books in the series. Das Gupta's settings are fantastic and capture the dream-like world of very ancient mythology while incorporating elements of modern science. She ends the book with a note about which stories were based on which Indian Bengali folk tales, and gives their sources.
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