Reviewer: Catriona Troth
What We Thought Of It:
Like Bilan’s debut novel, Asha and the Spirit Bird, Tamarind and the Star of Ishta is set in the north of India. Unlike Asha, though, Tamarind, the heroine of the book, is an outsider here. Thought she was born in her grandmother’s beautiful summer house in the cool hills below the Himalaya mountains, her father took her away when she was still a baby to live in Bristol, and they have never been back. Now, at eleven years old, she is meeting her mother’s family for the first time. And two questions burn:
What happened to her mother? And why will no one talk about her?
Like Asha and the Spirit Bird, this is a book a communion between generations and beyond the barriers of life and death. It celebrates magic and innocence and friendship.
Bilan captures the strangeness and joy for immigrant children experiencing their parents’ home country for the first time. New foods. Different customs. Relatives who act like they’ve always known you when you’ve only just met. And that one cousin who seems to resent your very presence…
Then there is the mystery of her mother. At first, Tam seems no closer to finding out anything about her. Everyone here seems to think it’s too sad to talk about too. But what about Ishta, the girl she meets in the garden at night, when she really isn’t supposed to be out there at all?
This is a tender book, laced through with a very particular kind of magic, and one that, at the right moment, might help a child coming to terms with the loss of a parent, especially one they have never really known. For others, it is another lyrical evocation of the high hills in the north of India.
You’ll Enjoy This If You Loved: Asha and the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan, The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Avoid If You Dislike: Stories involving the loss of a parent.
Perfect Accompaniment: Potato and pea samosa with a touch of cardamom
Genre: Children and YA (Middle Reader)
Buy This Book Here
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