Kalpana's Dream

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY APR 25, 2005

Themes of dreams, the past, family and flight play roles in Clarke's intricate novel, yet the surreal and realistic elements do not interweave as comfortably here as they did in her Starry Nights. On the first day of high school, Neema receives directions from Gull, a kind older boy who looks strangely familiar (seeing him, "words came drifting oddly into her mind: sheep, shepherd, lamb"). He, in turn, believes that Neema is someone special from his past. In an anticlimactic revelation, readers learn that in a "shepherd program" in primary school, she had been his "new little lamb." Meanwhile, Kalpana, Neema's great-grandmother, visits Australia from her native India. In Kalpana's titular recurring dream, she flies just above the ground, believing that if she goes fast enough she will once again see the face of her husband, who died at age 20. The sight of Gull skateboarding past their house convinces Kalpana that he is flying and leads to an epiphany (after sneaking a ride on his skateboard, Kalpana realizes that for an instant Neema's face is "the perfect image" of her husband). The metaphor stretches further in a rather tedious subplot, in which Neema's teacher assigns an essay and likens imaginative writing to "flying" (in a final image, the teacher and her boyfriend soar into the air in his car, "heading for a castle in the mountains, in a far-off foreign land"). Such strains on the narrative detract from the frequently lyrical writing and the convincing bond the author draws between Neema and Kalpana. Ages 10-up.