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A review by lopab94
Force of Fire by Sayantani DasGupta
5.0
A handful of pages into the book, I came across this:
And I knew I would love this book! And I was right!
[a:Sayantani DasGupta|684407|Sayantani DasGupta|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png] just has a way of taking the stories, mythology, lore, and history of the culture I was born into and love and retelling them in a fun yet pertinent way that still fits our current times. I was raised to feel passionately about the South Asian fight for freedom from the British, the Bangladeshi fight for our language, and the Thakurmar Jhuli stories, so for me it's amazing to see a story that incorporates all of that but makes it accessible to a modern day readers and a younger audience. I feel like I say this in every review of her books that I write, but I wish these books existed when I was a kid. I'm glad they exist now and hope the younger generations learn a lot from them.
Even if you're not interested in any of the above, this is still a fun adventure story about finding friends who become like family and finding your own voice to defeat the bad guys and I think anyone would enjoy that! Highly recommend. Would give it more than 5 stars if I could.
“Why don’t the snakes want us to speak Bangla, Shurjo-da?” one of the human schoolchildren was asking. The teacher they called Brother Shurjo smiled, poured some soil into the boy’s hand, and then closed the child’s small fist tight with his own. “I know this might be hard to understand, but the thing is, destroying a people’s language, not letting children learn the ways of those who came before them, is the surest way to kill a culture.”
And I knew I would love this book! And I was right!
[a:Sayantani DasGupta|684407|Sayantani DasGupta|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png] just has a way of taking the stories, mythology, lore, and history of the culture I was born into and love and retelling them in a fun yet pertinent way that still fits our current times. I was raised to feel passionately about the South Asian fight for freedom from the British, the Bangladeshi fight for our language, and the Thakurmar Jhuli stories, so for me it's amazing to see a story that incorporates all of that but makes it accessible to a modern day readers and a younger audience. I feel like I say this in every review of her books that I write, but I wish these books existed when I was a kid. I'm glad they exist now and hope the younger generations learn a lot from them.
Even if you're not interested in any of the above, this is still a fun adventure story about finding friends who become like family and finding your own voice to defeat the bad guys and I think anyone would enjoy that! Highly recommend. Would give it more than 5 stars if I could.