Unfair & Lovely - Mallika Thoppay

Author: Mallika Thoppay

Genre: Children's fiction, Chapter book.

Rating: 3.75 stars.

A sweet little story about a little girl’s journey towards self-acceptance.

Sahana and Surabhi are sisters. They’ve recently moved to a new city and are starting at a new school. However, their first days couldn’t have been more different. While third grader Surabhi makes friends and impresses her teachers easily, seventh grader Sahana is struggling against prejudice. All because of her dark skin. When things get too much to handle, she approaches her mom for advice. What guidance her mom gives her and how Sahana handles the discriminatory attitude against her forms the rest of the story.

People in India have this weird fascination with fair skin. (Which is kind of ironic if you consider that white-skinned westerners keep trying to get their skin tanned) But this fascination turns into obsession when it comes to girls. Even today, there is constant advice to mothers about how to make their daughters fair, there are beauty creams sold in the market to make you “fair and lovely”, and matrimonial adverts proudly use “fair” as a requirement for prospective brides. In such an idiotic cultural mentality, such books come as much needed.

This is a chapter book and would work well for children aged 7 and above. I liked the broad presentation of the story. While the situations are a little exaggerated (so many people judging someone on skin colour on a single day is too farfetched to believe), they are written in a way that children will understand Sahana’s pain. The ending was a bit too OTT for me – it felt straight out of a Bollywood flick. I also wish there were a strong male presence also in the story. All the key people are women – Sahana, her sister, her mom, her mom’s best friend, their grandma, the classmates, the teachers. Having men too would have created a better balance.

The illustrations work well for the story but they could have been better. In many places, it felt like the same stock poses were recycled and used across multiple pages.

Overall, definitely a great topic and an interesting read for children to understand the subtle discrimination present in our society. This would be a nice book not just for those who are darker-skinned but also to those who consider their fairer skin colour as a mark of superiority. The intent is great, the content is good.

The book is available on KU.