Waves magic wand unveiling vistas around children’s world

The Night Sky by
Samina Mishra
Tulika Books

There is something magical about the night sky that seems to belong especially to children and childhood. A few stars can become a child’s entire world, a blanket can become a spaceship and an ordinary bedroom can become a doorway to a whole other world. Samina Mishra’s The Night Sky evokes that quiet magic and wonder of childhood.

This story is about a little boy Tipu, who is fast asleep one night when his two little puppies, Layla and Jugnoo, enter his room. What follows is a small but beautiful journey into the world of imagination. His star-printed quilt becomes much more than a blanket, and suddenly the three of them are travelling through the night sky on a rocket to the moon. The story simply allows us to see the world through a child’s eyes, where the ordinary can become extraordinary. Ananya Srinivasan’s illustrations add a wonderful touch to this book. They carry the story beyond the words and retain its softness as well as playfulness.

What I liked most about this book is that there is no lesson smuggled into Tipu’s midnight flight to the moon and no attempt to make his imagination “count” for something meaningful. Samina’s books often give children the space to look at the world, rather than telling them exactly what to think about and how to think about it. That restraint in this book isn’t an isolated choice; it runs through her wider body of work. Her work also shows that she is deeply interested in the many ways in which children understand the world and objects around them.

Whenever a crisis unfolds — whether it’s unrest in a neighbourhood or a nationwide lockdown; it’s usually the adults caught up in it who get our attention, the ones we assume are equipped to make sense of the fear and disruption around them. Children, whether in that one neighbourhood or across the whole country, are often an afterthought, if they’re thought of at all.  Jamlo Walks (which was shortlisted for the VoW Book Awards in 2022) tells the true story of Jamlo Makdam, a 12 year old migrant worker who died walking hundreds of miles home during India’s 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, woven together with the experiences of other children watching the crisis unfold around them. In another compelling book, Roop and the River Crossing, she depicts the Partition through a child’s eyes, allowing a difficult and painful part of history to be experienced through a younger perspective.  My Sweet Home, which grew out of a workshop she ran with children in Jamia during a period of political turmoil there, pushes against that. Instead of writing about children from the outside, she brings their own perspectives: their writings and even their drawings into the book itself.

Her stories often seem to begin with a simple question: what does the world look like when we allow a child to tell us about it? The understanding of childhood is also connected to her work beyond the books. She founded The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood, a resource centre working at the intersection of childhood, art and education. During the pandemic, she began sharing art and writing activities for children, and later worked on projects such as Duniya Meri, which brings together children’s own ideas and visions of the world through drawings and poems. This material is all available online, on her YouTube and Instagram page.

Knowing that the author isn’t trying to shape what children think — she’s trying to make sure the rest of us hear what they already think, makes The Night Sky an even more interesting read. It’s rare to see an adult treat a child’s answer as insight rather than as something cute to be improved. Tipu’s adventure does not feel like an adult imagining what a child might dream about. It feels like the book is willing to trust the child’s imagination. Albert Einstein once said, “Logic can take you from A to Z, but imagination can take you everywhere”. The simple quilt becomes a cosmic playground because, for Tipu, there is no reason why it shouldn’t. A child does not need an expensive toy, a screen or an elaborate activity to create a universe of his own.

Beyond imagination, Samina also sees books playing a quieter, steadying role for readers of any age. In one of her interviews with Ecologies of Childhood,  she spoke about the role of books in helping both children and adults navigate difficult questions. She said, “ Books and media for that matter too, can be very solid places that parents can turn to sometimes when they themselves are not very sure on how to answer questions that may be difficult. As Katherine Rundell says, children’s book aren’t hiding places, they’re seeking places. So when we don’t have all the answers, stories give us a way to think and feel together”

The Night Sky is a small book, but it leaves behind a lovely thought: Maybe the universe is not always as far away as we think. Sometimes, it can begin right in a child’s bedroom.