Dancing in Thatha’s Footsteps by Srividhya Venkat, Kavita Ramchandran (Illustrator)

This book is available to request on NetGalley until August

I was tempted by the cover and the title because I was very close to both of my own grandfathers (The ‘thatha’ in the title is how many south Indian languages refer to their grandfathers, with the derivative coming from Sanskrit, which originally refers to father).
This is a concise story and approaches a different gender perspective than I am used to in such books. The young boy in a family is attracted to the idea of learning a traditional dance form which is predominantly taught to the females in the families almost automatically. This is where his grandfather comes in and proves to the larger crowd that there is no such limitation to the art form.
The story moves in quick succession without a long drawn emotional sequence, just a short one. It was cute and something I would love to show to my nieces and nephews if we ever get into a debate about ‘blues’ and ‘pinks’ in the future.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.