Title: The Boy Who Wrote A Constitution
Author: Rajesh Talwar
Illustrator: Niharika Singh
Publisher: Ponytale Books
Type: Paperback
Pages: 156
Age group: 8 – 12 years
This is the review written by my 11 year old son, Medhansh Dwivedi.
I enjoy reading books around history, and this book, ‘The Boy Who Wrote A Constitution’ came as a lovely surprise to me. I have always been curious to know more about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, and that is why I was more than delighted to receive this non fiction book as a review copy.
The book describes the discrimination Dr. Ambedkar faced during his life including childhood and how he overcame all of it and achieved a lot more. Now the question is why was he discriminated? That is because he was from the lowest of all four castes, the untouchable or the Dalit caste. During his time, India was struggling with its self made Hindu caste system and Dalits were treated badly. In fact, not just Hindus but even Muslims and Christians also discriminated the untouchables. Read the book to know more on this.
This book made me feel sad sometimes about the caste system and how Dalits were treated then. But I was also amazed by B.R. Ambedkar feats despite all the odds. Very inspiring!
The characters which I liked in the book are Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, his brother and sister, the Maharaja of Baroda and Dr. Ambedkar’s teacher because they motivated him at different stages of life and helped him through his journey.
As the book is in a play format, it has thirteen scenes. I would compare this book with my last read, The Magnificent Monuments of India – The Taj Mahal as both are non fiction, quite informative, especially from India’s context and interesting enough to keep me hooked till the end.
What I enjoyed most about this book is that the story was put across in a play format and the characters’ conversations were very engaging . Also I liked how the author described Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s life story in a fun and gripping manner despite the struggles he went through. I also liked the way the author mentioned bits of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s life instead of writing the full life story, otherwise it would have been a biography. So you get to know a lot about this great man in just a few pages and in an interesting way.
If I had to rate the book out of ten stars, I would give it 8 because some parts like the discrimination bit made me feel sad about the story.
A must read for sure!
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