by Very few books offer the dual quality of offering a good storyline and being a resource for information. This book suited best for 5 or 6 years onwards, who will love the story while the older ones may like to know on the facts of where in India were Dinosaurs fossils found? How does one go to study them? What actually happened millions of years ago before the dinosaurs went extinct? Are the eggs found even now? You will find a good resource and answers to questions like these in the book ‘The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur.
Written by Vaishali Shroff and illustrated by Suvidha Mistry, published by HarperCollins the story begins with a young Padma and her grandmother Labhuben taking the reader through their experience of finding a dinosaur egg. Set in Gujarat as the story truly originates from the author’s trip to Rahioli, Balasinor in the Kheda district of Gujarat.
Young Padma is an inquisitive child who loves and stays with her grandmother. Among her chores of helping her ‘Baa’ with grazing of the cattle, she also liked drawing on the rocks with a chalk, which incidentally would look like the ancient ‘makaras’ according to her Baa.
Padma also loved interacting with the professor and palaeontologist –Rajan Dinkar or ‘Rock Uncle’ as Padma fondly called him. Rock Uncle was always busy trying to discover Dinosaurs eggs and hoping to unravel the world of information on the interesting species.
One day Padma helped Rock Uncle discover a nest of dinosaur eggs and she had the privilege of taking one home. With imaginations going wild on how the dinosaurs lived and going to bed, the night seemed too long for Padma when she opens her eyes and finds herself and Baa in a dense forest. The scenes breathe out the visuals of the times dinosaurs lived and both actually discover a huge dinosaur. This one’s a harmless one but seems to be lost from his mommy. Looking way too different in blue colour, Padma names him Bluethingosaurus.
(From the inner pages of the book Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur. Photograph by Mums and Stories).
So along with Rock Uncle who is there too in this journey the story moves forward on finding the mom of Bluethingosaurus.
Going in a magical land to a kingdom of ‘Jabalpuriya’ of more dinosaurs where they could speak! Even baby Bluethinogsauraus who looked gigantic could speak to Padma and others. They soon discover mystical waterfalls and the journey even becomes adventurous for Padma with creepy nights to wild encounters with dinosaurs. How does the story finally end? For that you need to pick the book and read it as it gives in the form of an imaginative tale. Get used to pronouncing new kinds of names like Titanosaurus, Rajasaurus, Indosaurus, many of which have had their fossils discovered in India.
As mentioned earlier, the book also gives information on fossil sites in India, much to the delight and may even surprise a few considering that in a lot of states dinosaurs are assumed to have lived millions of years ago.
There is the short interview with the Aaliya Farhat Babi of Balasinor who is known as the amateur Palaeontologist. Her insights with a map of where the dinosaurs in India are believed to have lived makes the book more interesting.
This is a good book if your child loves knowing on dinosaurs or you want your child to know more on a forthcoming trip to Gujarat or even building the curiosity of the world of dinosaurs for him or her.
We loved the short video made for this book
The book is available – here
(Reshma Krishnamurthy received this book for a review for Mums and Stories).
Cover image and others are by Mums and Stories. Images and content are subject to copyright.
