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© Copyright 2013 - 2025
Varsha Seshan

Living with Adi

June 25, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

As one of the judges of the Scholastic Asian Book Award 2023, I was delighted to see Living with Adi on Duckbill’s list! Even when I was reading the draft, I enjoyed the story and the pace, as well as the way it tackles difficult themes. A sensitively told story about a neurodivergent boy, Living […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: books for tweens, Living with Adi, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review, Zarin Virji

Hour of the Bees

October 30, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

The six months of the year when my writing programmes are on are almost impossibly busy. Add book launches, travel and literature fests to a busy season, and I’ve had barely any time to read! But in the midst of it all, I snatched snippets of time to read the gorgeous Hour of the Bees […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Hour of the Bees, Lindsay Eagar, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review

The District Cup

April 5, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I don’t know much about football. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of matches I’ve watched. And yet, I loved The District Cup, a book that’s all about football fever. Pacy, powerful, and peopled with diverse characters, the book urges you to read on, page after page, chapter after chapter. […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Mallika Ravikumar, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review, The District Cup

Born Behind Bars

August 23, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Just like Fish in a Tree and Counting by 7s, I got around to reading Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman thanks to the NLF Reading Challenge. There’s just so much lovely literature out there just waiting to be read! I was a little sceptical about reading Born Behind Bars, though. I’m not a fan […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Born Behind Bars, Middle-Grade Fiction, Padma Venkatraman, reading, review

Counting by 7s

June 4, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

As part of the Neev Literature Festival’s reading challenge, I’ve been attending as many author interactions as I can. I love them! One session I attended last month was with Holly Goldberg Sloan, who spoke about her book The Elephant in the Room. I haven’t read that one, but I have read To Night Owl […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Counting by 7s, Holly Goldberg Sloan, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review

When the World Went Dark

March 27, 2021 by Varsha Seshan 2 Comments

I was fortunate that I didn’t have to deal with death when I was a child. Yet, I was terrified of people dying. My father remembers a day when I stood on the terrace, watching for my mother who was to return from work. My fear – when I was about ten years old – […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: Jane de Suza, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review, When the World Went Dark

Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days

March 12, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Dreadtastic. What could dreadtastic be? A little imagination led me to the right answer – dreadful + fantastic. Aha! I love books that play with words, as well as books that feature characters that enjoy words. I recently read (and wrote about) Friends Behind Walls, and the word games we played when we read it […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Middle-Grade Fiction, Nimmis Dreadtastic Detective Days, reading, review, Shabnam Minwalla

Loki Takes Guard

March 7, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What draws me into a story? What makes me long to know more? What keeps me reading? Character. Always, character. That’s probably why I don’t typically enjoy detective stories very much. Suspense isn’t what drives me as a reader, and all too often, good detectives remain elusive. Their enigma is part of why people are […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Loki Takes Guard, Menaka Raman, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review

My Year in Writing – 2020

January 9, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I’m beginning to write this post on a day when I received a miserable royalty report for one of my books for the year 2019-20. Yet, the year 2020 has been all kinds of wonderful in terms of publishing for me. So many of my projects have seen light of day, though they have suffered […]

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: Chapter Book, Dragonflies Jigsaws and Seashells, Duckbill, How I Feel, Middle-Grade Fiction, Oxford University Press, Penguin Random House, poetry, Pratham Books, Scholastic, Sisters at New Dawn, The Clockwalas Clues, Young Zubaan

To Night Owl From Dogfish

November 30, 2020 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Book cover Text: To Night Owl from Dogfish Holly Goldberg Sloan & Meg Wolitzer New York Times Bestselling Authors Image: Illustration of an owl in a triangle and, upside down, a dogfish in a triangle

I love epistolary novels. I think I’ve always loved them; they intrigue me. Off the top of my head, I think about Dear Mrs Naidu, Ketchup Clouds, Daddy Long-Legs and The Night Diary, though I’m sure I’ll think of several more by the time I finish writing this blog post. To Night Owl from Dogfish […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Holly Goldberg Sloan, Meg Wolitzer, Middle-Grade Fiction, reading, review, To Night Owl from Dogfish

Out of My Mind

November 4, 2020 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Book cover Text: out of my mind a novel Sharon M. Draper #1 New York Times bestseller Image: a goldfish jumping out of a bowl.

Why had I never heard of this book? Published in 2010, Out of My Mind was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years, and I just read it! When I wrote about Moonrise a few weeks ago, I mentioned how children often ask me which the first book that made me cry […]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Middle-Grade Fiction, Out of My Mind, reading, review, Sharon M Draper

Number the Stars

September 20, 2020 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What does it mean to be brave? And how can we help one another to be brave? Number the Stars is a beautiful work of historical fiction set in Denmark during the second world war. I love historical fiction that comes alive to me. Some time ago, I wrote about ten works of middle-grade historical […]

Filed Under: Books, Children Tagged With: historical fiction, Lois Lowry, Middle-Grade Fiction, Number the Stars, reading, review

Sisters at New Dawn – The Story Behind the Story

February 23, 2020 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Everybody knows that writing a book takes time. Sometimes (is it especially so with me?), it takes quite a long time. I wrote Sisters at New Dawn six years ago. 2014. Of course, this meant that in the last edit, I had to make lots of changes in it to keep up with the times. For instance, I […]

Filed Under: Books, Writing Tagged With: Middle-Grade Fiction, new release, Sisters at New Dawn, Young Zubaan