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Book Review: Badalon Ke Paar by Dr. Sangeeta Tomar

Badalon Ke Paar by Dr. Sangeeta Tomar is a beautifully written Hindi children’s novel. It’s a literary wonder for school going children. As it chronicles the tale of a school-going girl named Mini, also the novel is staged against two contrasting schools in the same city.


The novel is charming because of its time era, it is about 1980s and 90s, when childhood used to be filled with real friendship, happiness, and uncluttered worries that today’s advanced technology brings along with it. The world of Mini is simple and pure, however, it’s way far from luxury. Dr. Sangeeta Tomar draws a real and credible world of a student and schools and locality that sounds absolute surreal.

Mini’s parents are working people who cannot afford much time for her, thus, she goes to a school with a neighbor and spends ‘after-school-time’ with people and friend from her locality. She is happy, bright in studies, but something is missing from her life. She is a bold, sensitive, and a chirpy girl. She loves to hang around with the people around her.

Mini loves reading fairytale type of books. These books give wings to her imagination. She one day dreams about a world above the clouds where she is sitting cuddled with many of her favourite books. It was a special dream that didn’t leave her mind.

She begins receiving jolts and her confidence self-belief takes a backseat when she joins a new school, where her mother is a music teacher. The environment is totally different. She is amazed at everything there. Yet she treads with perseverance. She loses her footing in the studies. One teacher slaps her, another insults her for drawing a wrong diagram. And to add pain to her misery, she lags behind in maths. How to rise up again? The challenge is big but not insurmountable for Mini.

Are big and reputed schools not suitable for poor children? Why can’t she be a smart student like her friend Priya and others? It’s an inspiring story for students who wish to do well in the school. The novel shuttles between school and home life, it comes out that for a bright academic career, a student needs to have fine balance at both places. Mini was lucky to find an amicable friend like Priya, whose grandmother prepares her for maths and other subjects. Mini picks up fast and her all worries diminish as she fares well in the class.

You will love the insights of the school and its allied activities that keep abuzz there. By all means, the novel is strong, entertaining, with meaningful message for students and parents and teachers and school authorities.

Buy from Amazon/Kindle.

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