Author and editor Bijal Vachharajani has a brand new Middle Grade/Young Adult book out called 'Savi and the Memory Keeper'.

Last week, Bijal and I did an Instagram Live where we talked about the climate emergency, mother trees, dancing around trees, sinister cabals of Uncles and Aunties, magic realism and how she managed to weave all of them into this marvellous new book of hers! (There was also a rather amazing nagin-bunny dance!)

But first, here's my review of the book!

"There's a scene in Savi and the Memory Keepers where Savi, her sister Meher and their mother are eating Dhokla and trading plant related puns. It's a warm, funny, drenched in love moment in the book, and I promptly burst into tears. It was not the first or last time I cried reading Bijal Vachharajani's new book. 
I've been moved by Bijal's writing many times before - whether she's writing about seed banks, angry mobs, the climate emergency or grief, and I knew that her new MGYA book was going to have me sniffling, but I didn't quite expect to burst into ugly, snotty tears SO MANY TIMES.
13 year old Savi and her mother and sister move to Shahjarpur after the sudden death of her father. It's a place with perfect climate - not too hot, not too cold, not too rainy. But this  perfect climate attracts more and more people who need malls and steel flyovers and cafes, and who cut down trees to make way for them. And soon the perfect climate becomes extreme and erratic.
While trying to cope with her grief Savi is also dealing with trying to fit in with the nerdy Ents,  making sense of how she's now friends with The Very Cool and Hip People,  and keeping her beloved father's many, many, many plants alive. 
In this time of confusion, anger and sorrow, Savi finds herself drawn to a giant ficus tree in her school and realises that the tree (and all the plants at home) are communicating with her,  telling her stories from the past and present. Why are the trees talking to her? Who are the shady men in the shadows she can see in these visions? Why does the young boy in some of the scenes look so familiar? And how are they all connected?
Bijal deftly weaves together strands of science, climate emergency and heart breaking loss together to tell this story, which at its heart is really about love. The love we feel for our family, friends, the love we should feel for the planet and those we share it with and what to do with that love when we lose people. 

Bijal, being Bijal, does not offer a neat, happy ending tied up in a bow.  I really wanted the fairy tale ending, especially at the end of a year in which there's been so much loss, suffering and anguish. And I was pissed off when she didn't give it to me. Instead, she tells it like it is, offering the truth and a tendril of hope.
Rajiv Eipe's utterly gorgeous cover and illustrations at the start of each chapter are just lovely. 

Read this book with and to a young person you know, insist your school library stock multiple copies and then go out and hug a tree." 

Watch our Instagram live here: