🌜Moon Child🌛

Neela, an eleven-year-old who enjoys playing the veena, a traditional Indian instrument, hopes to become a well-known performer someday despite her struggles with doing so. Her current biggest annoyance is having to learn on her teacher’s old veena.

Then one day, a significant surprise arrives in the mail: Her grandma, a veena collector, has sent her one of her prized instruments, a veena that is exquisitely carved with a dragon. Neela begins to play her new veena and is immediately enamored by the beautiful sounds it makes.

until the veena is lost for good.

The veena vanished from a church where Neela had sought shelter from a storm, so her family goes back and looks for it in vain. Strange events, however, continue to occur: Neela observes a tea kettle with the same dragon as her veena; a menacing letter is delivered to her home; unknown persons appear to be way too interested in the instrument.

Neela’s family advises her to let it go, but she is certain that something is up. She becomes involved in a long history of lies and curses as a result of her determination to find her veena.

The well-developed mystery of the disappeared veena, reflections about history and custom, Neela’s evolving sense of self-worth and identity, passion and music, families and friendship—all of these components are flawlessly woven together.

Two themes stood out among them: Neela’s familial dynamics and the portrayal of Indian-American families.

Those minute details that comprise daily life and routine are a masterful depiction of the former.

It’s the fact that their family never arrives on time for anything, or the way their father always says hello to them when he enters a room.

It can be seen in the portrayal of Neela’s caring but deteriorating connection with her mother, such as how her mother frequently rubs her head in a way that both bothers and calms Neela, or how frequently she gets enmeshed in perplexing cultural views that Neela does not share.

Additionally, she has a quirky and endearing manner of handling her small brother’s anxiety of getting a haircut (would it suck his brains out?) as well as their common love of the veena.

The latter is caused by how various Indian families in the US are portrayed in a way that does not focus on the “unique” experience of Indian families in America, as though there were such a thing.

Both Neela and her best friend Pavi were born in the United States to Indian parents, and despite the fact that their families experience and live completely differently, they appreciate one another’s decisions and refrain from passing judgment on which path is “better.”

Neela and Pavi are young people who are still attempting to understand themselves.

The conflict between familial expectations and cultural and social conventions is there but never takes over the story. Neela is afraid of what her mother could say when she forms a friendship with a boy because she doesn’t know what she would say, but she is pleasantly surprised to find out that it wasn’t really a big deal.

Above all, I adored Neela and her courageous desire to take the necessary action. Highly suggested.