Review: The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom of Beyond, Book 3)

The Chaos Curse by Sayantani DasGupta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series is that rare Middle-Grade series that can appeal as much to adults as it does to children. Sayantani DasGupta has put so much thought and depth into the way she constructs the Kiranmala stories and they are food for thought for adults who share them with their children. From her thoughts on immigration and the Bengali diaspora to astronomy and cosmology, to her skillful interweaving of Bengali and Euro-American stories, this installment is a delight.

 In The Chaos Curse, Kiranmala returns to Parsippany to rescue Lalkamal, who is still stuck in a tree. Along the way, she meets the very odd Ned Hogar, and starts hearing about a big wedding that she hasn't been invited to attend. She's worried to find that her parents seem different, don't have a store, and want to totally forget their Bengali culture. Briefly back at school, she finds her frenemy Jovi is now her best friend and begins to realize that all this crunching together of stories that she saw on the way back to rescue Lal has also resulted in her being plopped into an alternate-universe-Parsippany that might have been smushed into her own. With an evolving dimensional disaster, Kiranmala, Lal and Neel find that multiverses and their stories are collapsing and that of course, Sesha is at the root of it all. But is Pinki, Neel's rakkhosh mother, working with Sesha or against him? If Sesha succeeds, he'll end the entire multiverse, so it's up to Kiran, Lal, and Neel to stop him. With imaginative use of myths, folktales, and classic children's stories from Baum's The Wizard of Oz to Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh," DasGupta has made a really enjoyable outing in this series, as the protagonists race to preserve stories and thereby cultures they represent.

 I strongly recommend the audiobooks of this series, narrated by the author herself with marvelous voicing. They make proper names and the names of various creatures like rakkhosh more accessible for a younger reader but more than that, DasGupta imbues so much humor in the voicing of her characters. Even minor characters like Bunty, Tuntuni, and Tiktiki just come alive with her voicing. This series is a great road trip selection for traveling with your middle graders.

I received an Advance Review Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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