Set in South India in the 1970s, this story explores a context that Western readers in particular may be less familiar with.

Pavi is a 9 year old girl who lives with her large family in this middle grade novel which contains intergenerational elements and unusual family dynamics. Pavi's life is emotionally rich, and includes her brother and cousin, as well as an array of uncles and aunts and grandparents who are affectionate and tell her stories.

But there are also some topics that are seemingly off limits - including the death of her maternal uncle Silva 5 months after Pavi's birth,which seems to be inexplicably intertwined with her own life.

The book is entertaining enough overall, but not outstanding. It is worth reading though, for the era it describes, its novelty value, and the multicultural elements it offers. It gets 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fiction set in 1970s South India. First person narrative, meandering plotline, interesting child characters, lacklustre adults, emotionally intense themes. Didn’t click with me as much as I had hoped.

Plot Preview:
1974. Nine-year-old Pavithra (known to us as ‘Pavi’) lives with her extended family in Madras. Life is an adventure with companions such as cousin Ruku, younger brother Arun, and granduncle Chanki. But there’s always a shadow over Pavi. Her mother’s brother Selva died exactly five months after she was born, and some family members seem to hold Pavi’s birth as the trigger for the loss. Pavi obviously never knew Selva personally, but she feels like she has a strong tie to him. When the grownups in her life don’t offer her satisfactory answers, she uses her imagination to find the way ahead.
The story comes to us in Pavi’s first-person perspective.

I was quite excited when I saw this debut work set in 1970s Madras (now known as Chennai.) Neither the era nor the location are often explored in children’s fiction. As an OwnVoices work, it promised a great deal of authenticity. The resultant experience was decent, but I am not sure if it matches what was promised in the blurb.

Bookish Yays:
🥭 The digital copy begins with Pavi's family tree from both her maternal and parental sides. Next comes a section titled ‘Notes of Tamil culture’. Both would be helpful to little readers, Even I found the Notes informative.
🥭 Pavi’s cousin Ruku is an outstanding character. I really enjoyed the conversations between these two girls. The fact that they were not similar to each other in behaviour and yet were so strongly connected in thoughts and deeds made their bond even more special.
🥭 The portrayal of 1970s India. Though I wasn’t even alive in that decade, many incidental points in this book reminded me of similar experiences from my childhood. The sadness of summer vacations ending, the joy of the first summer mango, the excitement of getting cartoon book labels for textbooks, older relatives calling our hair a “crow’s nest” when it wasn't oiled, exchanging old clothes for new vessels with the travelling utensil salesman… Nostalgia!
🥭 Quite a few fun adventures in the storyline. The mango escapade and the coin disaster would probably be my favourites. Pavi’s imaginative wonderings add to the magic of the story.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌴 There’s no cohesive plot, as a result of which the book feels disjointed at times. Such jumpiness is not that uncommon in a middle-grade adventure book, but this certainly isn’t an adventure story. Furthermore, as commonly occurs with many debut novels, this story includes too many topics, enhancing the fragmented feel.
🌴 Despite the bright colours on the cover and the joyful-sounding title, this is not a happy book. It explores several dark emotions and superstitions, all of which are well-handled but might be upsetting to younger or sensitive middle-graders.

Bookish Nays:
🌶️ I don't think the blurb is indicative of the content. While it contains no major spoilers, it seems to present a different picture of the plotline, making it slightly misleading. Some of the details it contains don’t even come in the first half of the book and are just incidental to the main story.
🌶️ The chapters are on the longish side, which might not work for every young reader. But this too would have been okay had the pacing been steadier. Unfortunately, the meandering and episodic narration makes the proceedings too slow to be engrossing.
🌶️ Surprisingly for a book with Indian characters, I couldn’t relate to most of them. Some of the secondary characters echoed sentiments I have heard in my extended family, but their role is quite minor. Pavi seems age-appropriate at times, and overly young at other times. No character other than Ruku was impactful to me.
🌶️ The book has too many irresponsible adults with poor behaviour and no sense of communication. Their actions as well as their over-reliance on secrets got on my nerves.
🌶️ As we hear the story from Pavi’s direct narration, we know only what she knows. Considering the above-mentioned tendency of the adult characters to keep secrets, this limits our understanding of their behaviour.
🌶️ Some inclusions struck me as odd. The spelling of Chanakya being written as “Chanukya”, a child referring to Mahatma Gandhi as “Gandhi” and not by his honorific or the respectful ‘-ji’ at the end. Not that kiddos abroad would notice this, but authenticity is authenticity, after all.
🌶️ Personal Preference (and spoiler): I don’t like books showing a child running away from home in a bid to find solutions.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 6 hours, is narrated by Rita Amparita. I did like her performance in general, and she even provided the right emotions for Pavi’s first-person POV. However, her mispronunciation of Indian names was very distracting to me. “Aa-ppa” for “Appa”, “too-laa-see” for tulsi, “Bo-say” for (Subhash Chandra) Bose… so many words were butchered! I didn’t even understand a couple of the words until I cracked the phonetic code bit by bit. In a book with multiple Indian names and words, these incorrect pronunciations stopped me from immersing myself wholly into the narrative. Honestly, if the narrator were of Indian origin, I would have been even more critical of her performance. But looking up her profile showed me that she is an Indonesian-American voice actor. Indonesia and India aren’t the same country and not even in the same part of the Asian continent! Why wasn’t someone of Indian origin or with greater familiarity with Indian names/words chosen for this audiobook?
Then again, most of the listeners might be based in the USA, so they probably won't find the audio version as irksome as I did. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Overall, this was a decent debut, but perhaps a bit too introspective and random for the intended audience. It also needs some editing to ensure a better flow to the storyline and tighter pacing.
The novelty of the setting might also work for or against the book, depending on the knowledge of the reader. I am an Indian (and way older than middle-grade age) so I am familiar with the ethos of the Indian culture as well the atmosphere of this historical time period. I am not sure how successful this book would be with middle-graders in the USA, even if they are of Indian origin. The historical storyline and unfamiliar cultural background might distance the plot from contemporary young ones.
Of course, a few children do like to read challenging books that offer a glimpse into a new culture and a young protagonist’s imaginative world. I hope this book reaches their hands.
2.5 stars, rounding down for the audio version.

This was a touching, layered coming-of-age story told through the eyes of curious nine-year-old Pavi. In this narrative Pavi navigates the mysteries of family, tradition, and loss in 1970s Tamil Nadu. Pavi is definitely curious about the world around her and also full imagination. I think this helps add depth to the MC helping provide a story that’s full of warmth and depth. Also the cultural nuance and emotional complexity added depth to the overall story. While the themes are heavy, the author handles them with care, making space for wonder, grief, and self-discovery.
The audiobook narration by Rita Amparita is expressive and immersive, though I think her voice felt a bit too mature for the young MC. Still, her delivery adds richness to the storytelling.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Audio ARC.

Pavi, who turns 10 in the middle of the book, struggles with growing up in 1975 India. Her mom is pregnant, her dad is often away, her friend moves, her classmates and teacher are mean to her, and her family is still grieving the death of her uncle. This is not a sweet, light story; it contains the death of a baby, Pavi getting kidnapped, the threats of being whipped by an exorcist who believes Pavi has a demon inside of her, and dark thoughts. Overall, the book did have a happy ending.
For me, this was just so-so. The writing style seemed disjointed a little, and although the tone was written for elementary, some of the topics were not appropriate for a 3rd or 4th grader, as well as the book being very long for the age it was written for. I realize the author wrote this based on their own memories and events of their childhood, and listening to it rather than reading it myself may have played a part in my overall enjoyment/engagement.

This book touched on some heavy topics that even for me an adult were hard. I did like that it touched them. I loved the culture in this and the family aspects.

Flying in Colors is a very sweet and entertaining middle grade book about nine year old Pavi and her family in India in 1975. The story follows Pavi wanting to learn more about the death of her Uncle Selva who passed away just 5 months after Pavi’s birth. Through Pavi’s quest to learn more we get to see all her different family members, their adventures and stories, situations at school, history and culture in Tamil Nadu, South India, and so much more.

The book feels very slice of life, while I was reading it I couldn’t tell what the arc of the plot was going to be. So it did feel a bit meandering at times or like it was dragging on and on. But overall I really enjoyed reading this book. I listened to it on audio and I think the narrator did an excellent job at bringing the story to life and voicing all the different characters. If you’re a middle grade fan then I suggest checking this one out. It feels very unique for the age category.