“Adults are guaranteed to chuckle through. Whether children get it or not doesn’t really matter.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

A shapeshifting cloud climbing mystery of a book with rock ‘n’ references thrown in. Kartik Shanker’s story of a loris following a cat-shaped dream wanders through fantasy land in a way which brings Finding Nemo and Disney’s Jungle Book to mind.

Shanker’s forest is haunted by a bunch of dudes who just happen to be animals and birds. There’s Don Wrongo the drongo, M Owli, a mob of mynahs and many more all of whom do deliver a message about the environment.

Shanker flits through his story dropping rock music quotes like ‘Elvis has left the building’ and Keralafonia twisted niftily to the tale and its creatures. Even ‘Magical Mystery’ comes from ‘Magical Mystery Tour’.

Adults are guaranteed to chuckle through. Whether children get it or not doesn’t really matter. They may just be happy wandering through the long grasses in Lori’s footsteps and wondering what exactly a slender loris is. As they will certainly be leafing through a catalogue of cat shaped creatures. With shadowy illustrations by Prabha Mallya to enhance the effect of a forest by night.

The only point is, does Lori’s mysterious creature really look like a cat?

 

Reviewed by:

Anjana Basu

Added 21st April 2017

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Anjana Basu