History And Stories – A Book List

Our study skills sessions on April 5th had kids requesting us for a list of book with history as their theme. We see so many lovely books these days for kids: it is shaping up to be the golden age of Indian writing for children with many options, many themes.

A lovely way of making learning fun and active for ourselves is reading more about all the stuff our textbooks talk about (and more!). In that spirit, here are some recommendations. We have not put any age on these books because we want kids to look at all kinds of books and make their choices on whether they think these books will fit. We have kept it India specific because there’s a lot out there about other books, we wanted this to be specific to Indian history as it relates to Indian textbooks.

We do recommend that you use indie bookstores (we have several in India like Funky Rainbow, Lightroom, KoolSkool, Champaca Book Store, Goobe’s et al to name just a few) because we need to support diverse and exciting spaces that curate books like these folks do. We also ask you to consider used bookstores like Blossoms, Bookchor, Bookworm, etc. to be eco-friendly or exchange in your communities, making books accessible to more kids around you, hopefully in all economic classes. Of what use is any education if we can’t create systems that are equitable around us?!

This is NOT a ranking. Read them all!

Books based on history for children

1. Roshen Dalal’s The Puffin History of India (Volumes 1 and 2) – These two books are illustrated and written in language that is extremely child friendly. That the author was a teacher with a PhD in history shows. This set of books covers ancient history all the way up to the early 2000s with civics intertwining with history throughout the volumes.
2. A Children’s History of India by Subhadra Sen Gupta – Subhadra Sen Gupta is one author who makes history come alive for kids with many books. This is a magnum opus, several other books are recommended below. In our eyes, if her name is on the book, it is one we will buy and read with pleasure.
3. Let’s Go Time Travelling: Life in India through the Ages by Subhadra Sen Gupta – A fun and interesting book with freaky facts and trivia, I couldn’t find this book in my library because this is the one we have bought so many times and given away as many times! Have to get this one yet again!
4. Tales of Historic Delhi: A Walk through its Many Cities by Premola Ghose – A gorgeously illustrated book, this one has Dr. Kamala of Janwar Dosti take Tunnu the Tiger, Bula the Bear, Lucky the rabbit, Zero the Giraffe and Tota the parrot through a tour of Delhi’s different cities. This book will make adults children too and is a great one for reading aloud to kids.
5. Ahimsa by Supriya Kelkar – A must have book in a child’s library, this book uses various strands while talking about the independence movement. What was the role of women? What about all classes and castes? How did it all work together? The book’s narrator is a child and the world as seen from her eyes is both fascinating and sobering.
6. The Girls of India Series – A series of three books by three beloved authors, this series takes young girls and places them in the Harappan, Mauryan and Chola times in the middle of crimes and adventures. Oh to be a kid in these days to read these books at their ages! Anu Kumar, Sunila Gupte and Subhadra Sengupta are the authors of A Chola Adventure, A Harappan Adventure and A Mauryan Adventure respectively.
7. Hachette’s Series on Indian personalities, edited by Anu Kumar – These are pocket sized editions that talk about what personalities did and what they said and include Swami Vivekananda, Chanakya, Sarojini Naidu and Mahatma Gandhi. Anu Kumar is another writer we can’t recommend enough in this space.
8. In the Country of Gold Digging Ants and Across the Seven Seas by Anu Kumar – These two books talk of the various travelers to India over 2,000 years and Indian travelers to various countries. Who was Cornelia Sorabji and Pandita Ramabai? Find out!
9. The Indus Investigators: Mohenjodaro Mystery by Ilona Aronovsky – On a school trip, Mina and Yasin get caught up in a time warp and get to interact with artefacts from Indus Valley Times!
10. Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman – 15 year old Vidya is from a conservative family when she discovers her grandfather’s libary and dreams of education. Do her dreams become reality?
11. The Forbidden Temple: Stories from the past by T.V. Padma – What did the lives of everyday children look like in the past? What did they play? Did they have pets? A perky ant makes tracking history super fun in this set of stories for kids.
12. The Unknown Indians and Kings and Queens by Subhadra Sen Gupta – Continuing on in the lines of what every day people did, Unknown Indians talks of weavers and cooks, minstrels and carvers and their enormous influence on our present day practices and culture. Kings and Queens has chapters devoted to rulers, Krishna Deva Raya amongst them.
13. Saffron, White and Green: The Amazing Story of India’s Independence and A Flag, a Song and A Pinch of Salt by Subhadra Sen Gupta – The former starts with 1857 and finishes up in 1950 with the Constitution. The latter is about freedom fighters. I won’t say much except these books are our blessings and how we know what all has had to be done, fought and won for our freedom today and how much we owe our little ones growing up in terms of building on these foundations.
14. A Beautiful Lie by Irfan Master – What’s a young Bilal to do when friends turn on friends in his village in the shadow of the Partition of India? His father is dying and news of the Partition will break his heart as he goes. There starts the beautiful lie, this debut novel of Irfan Master was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize.
15. The Night Diary by Veera HIranandani – 12 year old Nisha’s mother is Muslim and father Hindu in a world torn apart. She writes of their perilous story in her journal, a bittersweet and hopeful account of a young girl’s coming to terms with her past and present, towards a different future.
16. Brushing Up the Years by R K Laxman – The country’s sharpest cartoonist with his common man cartoons made pointed, insightful and uniquely Indian views of life. He started cartooning in 1947 for The Times of India and this book is a curated set of cartoons that tells the story of a newly independent and chaotic state trying to find its feet. A cartoon is an extremely intelligent form of story telling, with every line, word and expression needing to strike just the right note to tell leaders the truth, unpalatable as it might be. Any child who can understand cartoons needs a good knowledge of the world and its events, of language and its nuances and the mood of the time. We need to expose our kids to more such work because we need more to come from those who can to represent our times as they see it.
17. Let’s Explore Humanyun’s Tomb by the Archealogical Survey of India, published by the Aga Khan Trust – Each set of pages explores a part of this historic structure with words and pictures. Want to decipher the writing? There’s the code taught as well!
18. The Wheel of Surya, The Eye of the Horse and The Track of the Wind by Jamila Gavin – Marvinder and Jaspal flee Punjab and reach England. This series of three books tells us their story over the years. Why is their father in prison? Does the family get reunited? What is life like in the England of those days? I was lucky enough to find this series in an old bookstore. Needless to say, a bookworm fool and her money are very easily parted in these circumstances!
19. Rani Lakshmibai retold by Nandini Nayar – A slim volume, this book talks of the story of how a young Manikarnika becomes Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. It shows the timeline at the end and has a set of recommended books to read further for those so inclined.
20. Remembering Our Leaders, Volumes 1 and 2, Children’s Book Trust – Bankim Chandra to Subramanya Bharati, this is another slim set of books with a chapter devoted to a leader.
21. Amir Khusrao: The Man in Riddles by Ankit Chaddha – I felt the untimely loss of this author because I fell in love with his work. A tiny book, this one punches way above its weight category, with a riddle, its translation and exquisitely illustrated answers. History is made by many, this books helps us get to know some parts of one.
22. No Guns at My Son’s Funeral by Paro Anand – How does a happy, bubbly teenager end up on the wrong side of a true life cops and robbers game? Kashmir and its history are explored.
23. When Children Make History by Nandini Nayar – Hari and Harry are unlikely friends. What sense does the English Sahib’s son make of 1857, seen from the Indian punkahwallah’s son’s eyes? What must it be like to live through those turbulent times, worrying about their parents’ safety when they left the home every morning? We hope our kids will be more grateful for today’s peace, for all that we’re in the middle of a pandemic.
24. Puffin Lives series of books on leaders: Nehru by Aditi De, The Dalai Lama by Aravinda Anantharaman, Ashoka by Subhadra Sen Gupta and Chanakya by Deepa Agrawal – slim, well researched books that take us into these lives in more depth.
25. India through Archaeology: Excavating History by Devika Cariapa – A gorgeous, amazing book. Excitement, check. Cross cultural influences, check. Archeological artefacts, check. Interdisciplinary learning, check. Oh to be kids again!
26. Mohandas Karamchand by Aditi De and Pooja Pottenkulam – Want a just right graphic novel for the reluctant reader and the voracious one? This is it.
27. Letters from a Father to his Daughter by Jawaharlal Nehru – Letters written by Pt. Nehru to his daughter from jail have been combined to form a book. This is history from Early man to the Epics.
28. 20 Indians who changed the world and 10 Indian Women Who Were the First to Do What They Did by Shruthi Rao – Another favourite author, writing in her inimitable style that strikes just the right note. Who set the first rules of grammar? Well researched and curated books for all kids.
29. Stone Eggs: A story abourt Indian Dinosaurs by Helen Rundgren – Illustrated by Soumya Menon, this book tells us about Rajasaurus narmediensis. Do go and find out more about Indian dinosaurs.
30. Starcursed by Nandini Bajpai -We read this book again and again, adult and teen alike. Leelavati is Bhaskaracharya’s capable daughter. She fences with her brain, falls in love and deals with being cursed. What happens? Go find out, what are you waiting for?!

This list is dedicated to Gargi, Viraj and Anaghashree who asked for it. Any reviews by kids after using this list? Do send them in to us and we will publish them on our social media pages.

Once our child, always our child! And that goes for the kids we are yet to meet as well! 😀

Holiday reading, anyone? Have a rocking time!