Spotlight on India, Vol. 6

Children's Literature - Uma Krishnaswami

Part of the publisher's "Spotlight" series, other of which titles include Spotlight on Australia, Spotlight on China, and Spotlight on the United States of America. This book opens with a "Welcome to India!" spread that includes a map of India and surrounding countries and another showing India's place in the world. Subsequent chapters provide information about the people of India, the land, plants and animals, village life, the cities, life in ancient times, European traders and British rule, the freedom movement, government, holidays, culture, food, and clothing. The writing is by and large simple and accessible, albeit a tad dry and uninspiring. The concluding chapter is titled "Your Own Tour" and features a young woman from what appears to be the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. The text claims that she will be our first guide. Shortly after that, the tour dissipates into a couple of lines of text about the Himalayas, and then we are mysteriously left to turn a page with pictures of the Taj Mahal and Kerala, only to find that we have arrived at the glossary and index. No differentiation is made between regions of the country, so the implication in the text is that everything in the book applies to all of India. Stock photos used for illustration are colorful and do demonstrate the diversity of the country. The historic material is accurate and condensed into this small space as well as possible. It is all a little hurried and feels ill-conceived and poorly executed. The glossary consists of words that are boldfaced in the text. Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami