“Witty and fast-paced, Loki Takes Guard is as much a story about the joy of sports as it is about breaking outdated rules and standing up for oneself.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
At one level Loki Takes Guard is about a cricket crazy girl who wants to play on a boys’ team but, at another level it is about a lot more. Menaka Raman’s book is about the issues tomboyish girls face when confronted with conventional family values. Loki’s Amma sends her with sweets around the neighbourhood to commemorate her first period though without briefing her on not blurting out the reason why to various uncles. The book is about the experience of buying one’s first bra with a creepy salesman and a mother who believes that bras should not be pretty and, most importantly,it is about the twitter feed phenomenon and being noticed on social media. Loki is so ignored that people rarely get her name right and her father never opens his mouth on any issue.There is already a women’s cricket team playing internationally but Raman believes that to be equal, society needs to get the better of patriarchy, that teams need to be gender mixed and that the older generation knows surprisingly more than most children dream they do, including being more open minded than parents.
The message at the heart of the book is that girls should follow their dreams whether through petitions or PILS– there is the example of the divorced Akka who lives in a happy yellow house down the lane with lots of books and is perfectly content – even though the neighbouring Aunties and Loki’s own Amma sneer at her.
Loki Takes Guard is a witty story that takes the reader through the girl’s worlds of besties, vloggers, evil schoolteachers and even head lice. Not to mention Kookaburra cricket bats and TRPs.
Reviewed by:
Anjana Basu
Added 15th March 2021
