New York Times best-selling author Sayantani Dasgupta’s Secrets of the Sky – The Chaos Monster is a story of caring, courage, adventure, and magic that takes root in our inner world(s) and manifests in the outside one.
The first in the Secrets of the Sky series, the book is about the adventures of ten-year-old twins, Kiya and Kinjal who live in Parsippany, New Jersey. The twins live ordinary lives with their parents, Arko and Indrani, and their goofy, adorable dog, Thums-Up. Their routine lives get turned upside down when Kinjal, in the middle of the night, goes looking for the book, Thakurmar Jhuli. This book of folktales is one from which the twins’ father sometimes reads to them. Though old, frayed, and tattered, the book is a cherished one that Arko keeps locked in a trunk in the basement. Kiya follows Kinjal and helps him retrieve it, and their adventure begins when they open the book. It is “the beginning of everything.”
The Great Blah, the chaos monster, “the enemy of any heroic quest” dognaps Thums-Up and Kiya and Kinjal are introduced to the pakkhirajs, Raat and Snowy. The giant-winged horses agree to help them find Thums-Up in exchange for the twins’ help in saving the Sky Kingdom, the home of the pakkhiraj, where the bees are dying and the waters in the lakes are drying up. The twins enter an alternate world that is also suffering from the burning issues of climate change, environmental cataclysms like the dwindling bee populations, deforestation, and the consequences of pesticides on the ecosystem. The oft-quoted line in the book reiterates, “Because everything is connected to everything!” No spoilers here. The last part of the saying is revealed at the end of the book.
Dasgupta masterfully interlaces the urgent environmental issues plaguing our planet with fantasy and magic. She juxtaposes the larger question of our relationship with the environment and the causes of climate change with characters that are inspired by traditional Bengali folk tales and children’s stories popular in West Bengal, India, Bangladesh, and the Bengali-speaking diaspora. Secrets of the Sky is an epic-fantasy tale that has princesses in all their royal splendors, and mythical, fantastic creatures like General Ghora, Princess Pakkhiraj, and the rhyming bird Tuntuni. The chapter titles are lengthy and intriguing and are sure to pique your curiosity about what is yet to unfold. The conversations between the characters are laced with humor, especially when the twins engage in verbal sparring amongst themselves and Tuni’s jokes, which may elicit long-suffering eye rolls from young readers.
In her Author’s Note, Dasgupta provides more in-depth information on the book, Thakurmar Jhuli, and other folktales from South Asia. She acknowledges the advocacy work of young people for environmental justice and the urgency in caring for/ healing our planet for present and future generations.
Dasgupta hopes the book inspires her young readers to believe in the magic of our world, to realize that they have the power to change things, to make the planet a “better, healthier place for all.”
Ages – 8-12
