8 Vivid and irresistible Indian fantasy books for children

list of indian fantasy books for kids to read
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Did you await a Hogwarts letter on your eleventh birthday too? Did you long to visit the wizarding world somehow, someday? Was it your childhood too? If yes, there’s a good solid chance you’ll love our recommendations here (and find a new world to inhabit in the process). Not only are these stories fanciful flights of imagination, but they also have a desi flavour that you’re sure to enjoy!

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What are more Indian Fantasy books that you have read? Comment down below and help your fellow readers escape to imaginary worlds.

The Conch Bearer

Title: The Conch Bearer

Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: 720

Pages: 272

Blurb:

The Conch Bearer by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian fantasy novel.

In a dingy shack in the less-than-desirable Indian neighborhood he calls home, twelve-year-old Anand is entrusted with a conch shell that possesses mystical powers. His task is to return the shell to its rightful home many hundreds of miles away. Accompanying him are Nisha, a headstrong but resourceful child of the streets, and a mysterious man of indeterminate age and surprising resources named Abadhyatta. His quest will take him farther from home than he’s ever been and will teach him more than he ever imagined — and it will force him to make a poignant decision that will change him forever.

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The Devourers

Title: The Devourers

Author: Indra Das

Publisher: Penguin

Price: 550

Pages: 252

Blurb:

On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent.

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The Diary of a Space Traveller and Other Stories

Title: The Diary of a Space Traveller and Other Stories

Author: Satyajit Ray

Publisher: Puffin

Price: 250

Pages: 288

Blurb:

Exciting, imaginative and funny, the stories in this collection capture the sheer magic of Satyajit Ray’s lucid language, elegant style, graphic descriptions and absurd humour. The indomitable Professor Shonku has returned, to win himself over a whole new band of followers!

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Listen, O King! : Five-And-Twenty Tales

Title: Listen, O King! : Five-And-Twenty Tales

Author: Sivadasa

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

Price: 250

Pages: 208

Blurb:

‘If you know the answer and do not respond, your head will shatter into pieces!’ In a land of glorious kings, bloodthirsty demons and talking spirits, was born the lore of Vikram and the Vetal. After a series of mysterious events, King Vikramaditya carries the vetal, a witty ghost, on a long journey through death’s playground. The vetal narrates the most fascinating tales and asks the most puzzling riddles, leaving Vikram completely stumped. Deepa Agarwal’s beautiful translation brings age-old wisdom alive through the vetal’s wondrous stories that are bound to confound and captivate readers even today.

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The Serpent's Secret

Title: The Serpent's Secret

Author: Sayantani DasGupta

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Price: 845

Pages: 368

Blurb:

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Kiranmala is just a regular sixth grader living in Parsippany, New Jersey… until her parents mysteriously vanish and a drooling rakkhosh demon slams through her kitchen, determined to eat her alive. Turns out there might be some truth to her parents’ fantastical stories-like how Kiranmala is a real Indian princess and how she comes from a secret place not of this world.

To complicate matters, two crush-worthy princes ring her doorbell, insisting they’ve come to rescue her. Suddenly, Kiran is swept into another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps, and annoying, talking birds. There she must solve riddles and battle demons all while avoiding the Serpent King of the underworld and the Rakkhoshi Queen in order to find her parents and basically save New Jersey, her entire world, and everything beyond it…

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The Puffin Book of Magical Indian Myths

Title: The Puffin Book of Magical Indian Myths

Author: Anita Nair

Publisher: Puffin

Price: 599

Pages: 192

Blurb:

When Surya the sun god got married, his wife could not bear the heat of his rays and ran away. Surya was heartbroken and the world plunged into darkness. A dwarf asked a king for some land, which he measured with three footsteps, and ended up claiming the earth and the sky. Sage Daksha got his daughters married to the moon, but later, in a fit of rage, cursed the moon with consumption, making it wax and wane.

These are some of the fifty myths from India recounted in this fabulously produced book. From wise sages to demonic asuras, beautiful river deities to arrogant kings, wayward gods to brave princes, this collection of myths showcases the most enchanting and magical stories from Indian mythology.

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The Guardians of the Halahala

Title: The Guardians of the Halahala

Author: Shatrujeet Nath

Publisher: Repro Knowledgcast

Price: 399

Pages: 428

Blurb:

The deadly Halahala, the all-devouring poison churned from the depths of the White Lake by the devas and asuras, was swallowed by Shiva to save the universe from extinction.
But was the Halahala truly destroyed?

A small portion still remains – a weapon powerful enough to guarantee victory to whoever possesses it. And both asuras and devas, locked in battle for supremacy, will stop at nothing to claim it. As the forces of Devaloka and Patala, led by Indra and Shukracharya, plot to possess the Halahala, Shiva turns to mankind to guard it from their murderous clutches. It is now up to Samrat Vikramaditya and his Council of Nine to quell the supernatural hordes – and prevent the universe from tumbling into chaos!

A sweeping tale of honour and courage in the face of infinite danger, greed and deceit, The Guardians of the Halahala is a fantastical journey into a time of myth and legend.

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Simoqin Prophecies

Title: Simoqin Prophecies

Author: Samit Basu

Publisher: Penguin India

Price: 499

Pages: 517

Blurb:

The Simoqin Prophecies marks the debut of an assured new voice.

Written with consummate ease and brimming with wit and allusion, it is at once classic SFF and subtle spoof, featuring scantily clad centauresses, flying carpets, pink trolls, belly dancers and homicidal rabbits. Monty Python meets the Ramayana, Alice in Wonderland meets The Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood meets The Arabian Nights in this novel-a breathtaking ride through a world peopled by different races and cultures from mythology and history.

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Amritesh Mukherjee

Amritesh doesn't know what to do with his life, so he writes. He also doesn't know what to write, so he reads. Gift him a book if you chance upon him and he'll love you forever.

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