Book review

Book Name- The Magic Drum and other favourite Stories

Author- Sudha Murthy

Book review by Raj Sharma, Staff college Bengaluru.

Book “The Magic Drum and other favourite Stories”, is a collection of 37 short stories
which have been enjoyed by several generations of readers of Panchatantra, Jataka and
Kathasaritasagara, also sometime told by Grandmas in Indian homes.

The stories in the book are told in very simple and connecting language. Stories being
short keeps us taking different worlds in very sort span of time as soon as we shift to
next story. Stories are collected from literatures or folktales of different part of world, so
they cover different dimensions of human emotions.

Indian style of story telling is majorly ends with moral of story. Here Mrs. Murthy has not
given any formal moral of story, but while ending the story reader automatically reaches
to a moral ethical conclusion and this is her biggest success.

Stories in this book moves around real life like characters which are relatable to
common man and no fictitious super human kind of characters are used in stories. This
way it keeps our imagination simple and connected to real life.

The shortcoming of the book I felt is also related to the strength of the book. Sometime
the stories are too sort and as soon as we start enjoying the story, it ends. It keeps the
hunger for more fun unsatisfied and sometime we feel a bit disconnected when we jump
into the next story.

Finally, the book is a good collection of stories and it can be used to learn stories to
tell to our next generations and kids to keep the great legacy of Indian Storytelling alive.