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Ishaani Butalia

WRONG SIDE OF THE BED
By Poojitha Prasad
Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 2004, pp. 154, price not stated.

MOLLY MOON STOPS THE WORLD; FAIRY TREASURE
By Georgia Byng ; By Gwyneth Rees
Macmillan, New Delhi, 2003 & 2004, pp. 354 & 236, price not stated.

VOLUME XXVIII NUMBER 11 November 2004

When I first picked up Wrong Side of the Bed and explored the cover, I found that a fourteen-year-old girl had written it. I’m also in the (never-ending) process of writing a book so this intrigued me and I couldn’t wait to see how she wrote. I’ve read books by Indian authors before, and there’s always a distinctive taste to the writing style, which tells you it’s an Indian author. This book, however, had a whole new kind of impact. If it weren’t written on the back, you wouldn’t believe Poojitha Prasad was fourteen when she wrote this book.      The book focuses on Anita Nair, a thirteen year old kid in Bangalore, who lives pretty much the normal teenage life, getting into trouble in school, having to listen to long boring speeches in assembly (I really sympathize with that one) and the whole thing. Then one morning, she wakes up to find herself in a completely unfamiliar place.      To herself, she stills looks the same, but everyone else seems to see her as Chris Magnus, another thirteen year old, in San Francisco. Anita has no idea what to do, and causes quite a few disruptions in Chris’s life until she discovers that back home in Bangalore, Chris Magnus is living out Anita Nair’s life.       The book goes on to tell us how the two girls manage to switch their lives back, with a little help from some unlikely friends. Its story is fast moving and intriguing, making sure you don’t put the book down till page 154. You can almost feel Anita’a building despair as she starts to think there may not be a way back at all. This book would be an achievement for any writer, more so for one who’s still in high school.      The next book I picked up was Molly Moon Stops the World, by Georgia Byng. This was in a completely different strain, compared to the first book I read, but I had just as much fun reading it. The book is a sequel to Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism, which I haven’t read, but it is a story on its own.      The story opens with the kidnapping of one Davina Nuttell, a child superstar who, along with the rest of the world, Molly Moon hypnotized in her previous book, so ...


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