Kiki Kallira Conquers a Curse, by Sangu Mandanna

I really enjoyed reading this book – although I am slightly out of the age range at 60+ - it is a good adventure story with fun characters and an interesting use of parts of Indian mythology. 

This is the second book in the Kiki Kallira series and ideally you need to read the first one in order to understand the relationship dynamics, and to get a grounding in the workings of Kikiverse.  Essentially, it is an imaginary world created by Kiki on paper during a time when she needed to dream, and escape from what was happening in her life. It magically came into being

Like all good adventure stories, this is about righting a wrong. The action moves along swiftly, and the interaction between various characters is well done and with wry humour. As well as a journey/ quest for Kiki and her friends, this story deals with some important issues, such as race, emotions, a feeling of powerlessness for an individual, and acceptance. But these are dealt with in a non-preachy way. Themes of acceptance, trust, and appreciation/ understanding of self, including quirks, differences, and insecurities, are part of Kiki’s personal growth journey. These issues don’t intrude on the story, and I enjoyed the fact that Kiki starts to accept herself, rather than continue to struggle with knowing her “rain works “a bit differently”.  

There were few imaginative books like this available when I was growing up, which is probably why I like reading them now! I would have loved to have had books like this when I was little; books that give you a place to go to in your head, a good story, new imaginary friends, and which tell you that it is more than OK to be different.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe never appealed to me as I found it too preachy and, actually a bit dull. But books like this and the Garth Nix “Keys” series (which is also written for this age group) are magical in all senses of the word.

As the end of the book is nicely set up for the series to continue; I shall look forward to reading the next one. But before that I’m going to go back to read the first one: “Killa Kallira Breaks a Kingdom”.

- Christine

Christine read the proof edition of "Kiki Kallira."

It has since been published, and is available in paperback for £7.99!

Click here to order!