RAZIA AND THE PESKY PRESENTS By Natasha Sharma. Illustrations by Priya Kurian Duckbill Books, 2015, pp. 80, R175.00 GIRLS TO THE RESCUE By Sowmya Rajendran. Illustrations by Ashok Rajagopalan Tulika, Chennai, 2015, pp. 56, R160.00 BIG HERO SIZE ZERO By Anusha Hariharan and Sowmya Rajendran. Illustrations by Niveditha Subramaniam Tulika, Chennai, 2015, pp. 108, R225.00 HOW TO STOP YOUR GROWN-UP FROM MAKING BAD DECISIONS By Judy Balan. Illustrations by Priyanka Shyam Harper Collins India, 2014, pp. 160, R199.00    Judy Balan, Anusha Hariharan, Sowmya Rajendran and Natasha Sharma; life is too short to not know them. Books from this strong line up of female authors reached me as I got ready for a lazy weekend and left me feeling happier than a duck in a pond. Coincidentally, all four books had a common theme—mighty girls. It resonated deeply with my belief that we need more books where girls take the lead. So, I started the weekend with Natasha Sharma’s Razia and the Pesky Presents simply because I have a weakness for alliterations and Sharma is one of the few writers who bring to life Indian history for young readers! This slim chapter book is the fourth addition to Duckbill’s ‘HistoryMystery’ series and is about Sultan Razia, who succeeded her father Shams-ud-din Iltutmish to the Sultanate of Delhi in 1236. The story opens in the middle of a poem that a hapless courtier is reciting to Sultan Razia. It’s her birthday and the poem is the first of many presents…except that the presents turn out to be quite pesky and threaten to ruin Sultan Razia’s day. This is because the secret sender of the presents is trying to tell Sultan Razia that she had best behave like the woman she is and not the Sultan she wants to be. From a pesky poem to a painful palanquin to a loathsome lehenga and finally to a present calculated to strike fear into Razia’s heart, the gifts keep getting grimmer. The Fabulous Forty are ordered to get on the case and what follows is plenty of humour and even nearly a war. There is no slow burn here, the action is fast and the writing is superbly reined with every word and sentence building up to the suspense. However, one wishes that the author had drawn a more holistic picture of Razia. In the book, she seems to be constantly angry, shouting and bullying her bandas (...