The Forbidden Temple: stories from the past
The author's artistry lies in weaving a rich tapestry of fiction around strands of historical facts
that have been so picked as to bring in shades of different eras. The patchwork of informative
tidbits sprinkled across the text plus a well-illustrated activity trail at the end provides just the
right finishing stitches.
– March 2005, The Tribune

The book contains a collection of short stories with each story taking place during a different
era of Indian history. While the stories are fictional, the depiction of everyday life during these
times is based on factual evidence...a refresher course...for those adults who slept through their classes because the teacher just happened to recite the various dates and years in a monotone...This is something that the book manages to tackle and the end result is pleasing.  
          History is no longer an aggregation of endless numbers of years and unpronounceable names, but the characters are fleshed out, people seem to be the same as us, living, breathing and made of flesh and bone...Here they spring out in black and white illustrations that are so unlike the grainy photographs of conventional textbooks. They are crisp and sure and each era's style is evoked...The little factoids...explaining the finer nuances of the lifestyle further our individual knowledge about our collective history.
– Saudha Kasim, illustrator

...a boon for curious children who have wondered what life was like for other children in other times...the stories are meticulously researched...The charm of the stories is not restricted to their unusual settings. Each story goes beyond location to capture a situation that is timeless and universal...The book ends with an entertaining workbook of drawings, wordplay, maps and mazes. Older children will be intrigued by these snippets, and this book will go far towards increasing their appreciation for history and good writing.
– Susan Chacko, SAWNET

Mathematwist

No child should pass up the opportunity to own this collection of mathematical reasoning... Fourteen number tales from 10 countries make up this collection. Tales from Rome, China,
Ethiopia, Greece, Russia, the US, Vietnam, India and a Jewish one comprise the numbers
game... Mathematwist is full of interesting snippets. Did you know that logarithms were
invented in India and that the Western world didn't know about them till the 17th century?
– February 2008, Livemint

The Shining Stones

On Involving local people in community archaeology...

A little book from India targeting 7-10 year old children does this wonderfully well. The Shining Stones by Shanti Pappu is didactic, and not afraid to tackle the very distant past: not the archaeology of the Indus Valley civilisation, but that of 700,000 BP or 'more than 10,000 grandafters ago!' A number of devices are used, woven together: the story of the excavation
of a Lower Paleolithic site at Attirampakkam in Tamilnadu; the presentation of the finds – an Acheulean handaxe, a human tooth, the footprints of a baby elephant; life in the village (the local people are asked to 'Guard the site. Don't allow anyone to pick up stone tools from the site. All this is yours. Look after it.'); and the story of the hunter-gatherer family on the banks
of the river Kortallayar which allows the present-day children to relate to remote people. Add
to this a timeline of human evolution and explanations of the techniques and tools used by archaeologists. All this in 26 pages, with colour photographs from the modern village and the excavations and different styles of illustration to suit the mood of each element of the narrative. This is informative, fresh, deligtful, a lovely, even if directed, way of connecting living communities with humanity's deep past.
– March 2008, Antiquity (volume 82, no 315) New Book Chronicle

Set in a story book format, The Shining Stones, succeeds in its aim of bringing archaeology alive for children.
          As you browse through this book, it's like revisiting the same topics from history that you so dreaded. But this time round, you'll be surprised to find yourself smoothly leafing through the entire book with renewed interest. ...the relatively short (32pages) book...is brimming with interesting illustrations, photographs and facts about the most fascinating
era of mankind – the Stone Age...Mainly aimed at children and teachers...also likely to be
an indispensable guide for parents wanting to educate their kids about human evolution,
how archaeologists work, the tools used in excavations and the lives of our ancestors.
– June 2007, Indian Express