For any new children's books at the online library http://www.easylib.com/, that I run in Bangalore, my nine year old daughter who happens to be a voracious reader is my guinea pig to test the readability of the books. As she devours western writers, she really plods on with Indian Writing. When she almost did not even get to complete the book by Swapna Mirashi, 'The Adventures in Moneypur', I picked it up to see what the reluctance was all about. The plot was good and the adventure was exciting but the amount of detail was a bit too much.
Then I picked up an 'Encyclopedia Brown', which children at the library simply can't have enough of. The first thing that struck me was how there were absolutely no long-winded descriptions and the mystery started right away. Anita Nair, once answering an audience question at the library had said that being descriptive is in the Indian blood - whether Kalidasa or Bhasa or the modern day Indian writers! However, at least writers aiming to grab the attention of the young, definitely need to cut down the narrative.
