Beyond the Secret Garden: ‘An Epic Continent’ – Asia in children’s and YA literature

In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor turn their attention to amazing Asia.

Rashmi Sirdeshpande’s and Jason Lyon’s landmark publication Amazing Asia (Wide Eyed Editions 2024) moves beyond traditional definitions of Asia as being either ‘East’ or ‘South’ to include western and northern regions of Asia, recognising people from countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as Asian rather than Middle Eastern or connecting them with former imperial powers such as the Soviet Union. Amazing Asia offers an engaging overview of a continent that is home to two-thirds of the world’s population. The book is organized into East, South, Southeast, West, North and Central, and Global Asia. The reader is offered information on the history, people and culture, wildlife and landscapes, spectacular sights, change-makers and superstars, and in a section entitled ‘Today, Tomorrow’ technology, pop culture and occasionally, protest. The inclusion of this final section is in keeping with the way that Sirdeshpande resists notions of fixedness often discernible in texts of these type. Indeed, she explains how the boundaries around and within Asia are not straightforward, are sometimes disputed and are subject to change.

In September 2024 the ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) Authors Lit Fest took place at SOAS and the inaugural SAILFEST for South Asian children’s authors took place at the British Library. In May 2018 and March 2021, we wrote columns about racially minoritized characters with Asian heritage, ‘South Asian’ in the first column and ‘East Asian’ in the second. In July 2024, we wrote a column about Palestinians in children’s literature.  We thought we’d offer a brief, non-exhaustive look at other books relating to Asia that have been published in the past five years in order to highlight other books that could be read in classrooms and at home along with Amazing Asia. However, it should go without saying that each of these books could and should be read in its own right.

Published in the USA, The A Very Asian Guide Series (Gloo Books 2023) currently covers Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Malaysian, and Indian food. The guide to Indian food, written by Julie Ajinkya with lively illustrations from Aditi Kakade Beaufrand, highlights the religious and cultural significance of food as well as its diversity and its place in the diaspora.

Following broader trends of depicting the histories and cultures of former colonies of Britain, nonfiction about Asia has become more specific, more detailed, and clearer about both former ties to Britain through colonization and life in these nations since independence.  Jasbinder Bilan’s and Nina Chakrabarti’s India, Incredible India (Walker 2022) focuses on India’s independent past and future rather than its history under the British empire; however, it does so through the conceit of a British girl spending an evening talking with her Nanijee about souvenirs Nanijee collected from her travels through India.  Donna and Vikesh Amey Bhatt’s and Salini Perera’s Lands of Belonging: A History of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Britain (Nosy Crow 2022) includes some similar aspects of the subcontinent’s culture (both, for example, include double page spreads on religious festivals), but Lands of Belonging spends much more time on the tangled and often negative consequences of the British involvement in the region, including a section on ‘Trade and Slavery’ as well as a double page spread on ‘Racism and Uprisings’ after people from the subcontinent migrated to the UK in large numbers after World War II.

We have seen a number of works of historical fiction in recent years. Two fictional accounts of Partition and the establishment of Pakistan, Swapna Haddow’s Torn Apart (Scholastic 2021) and the forthcoming The Line They Drew Through Us by Hiba Noor Khan (Andersen 2025), both use the theme of friendship between Muslim and Hindu children to demonstrate the senselessness of the violence and the hope that sectarian violence can be avoided.  Haddow’s book depicts an unlikely friendship between a rich Muslim and a Hindu street-child when Ibrahim is separated from his family as they are trying to escape to Pakistan and Amar rescues him.  Hibba Noor Khan’s book is also about friendship, but of a much more equal and long-lasting variety; Ravi and Jahan have been friends nearly since birth, and their friend Aisha (who has a Muslim birth name and a Hindu nickname of Lakshmi) shares their birthday and their love of a village with no name.  When partition comes, they too are separated, but Khan’s story keeps the children at a distance from the worst of the violence.  Khan’s story does not ignore the brutalities, but retains hope in a dark time.

Elsewhere, Candy Gourlay’s Times Book of the Year winner, Bone Talk (David Fickling, 2018) is set in the region of Cordilleras in the Philippines in the nineteenth century, telling the story of the U.S.A. invasion from the viewpoint of an indigenous person.

There has also been a growth in ‘Historical Fantasy’. Zohra Nabi, in her series that begins with The Kingdom over the Sea (Simon and Schuster 2023), depicts a parallel world of magic, set in kingdoms similar to ancient Persia where the Arabian Nights stories arose.  Twelve-year-old Yara was not brought up in this world, but in Bournemouth, and the woman who she thought was her mother is really just a foster mother.  Partly because of her British upbringing, Yara must learn the traditions, culture and customs of the new and magical world where she now lives.

Sufiya Ahmed’s Time Travellers series (Little Tiger) explores the historical relationship between Britain and South Asia through time-slip narrative. Secrets and Spies (2024), the second book in the series, sees Suhan, Mia and Ayaan, travel to India in 19799 and encounter the Sultan of Mysore. Jasbinder Bilan’s Anya’s Quest (Walker 2024) is an eco-themed fantasy tale that takes the reader from the Himalaya across space and time, with beautiful illustrations by Jane Ray. Bilan’s Costa Book Award winning debut, Asha and the Spirit Bird is set in the same area, where she herself grew up.

Hans Christian Anderson Award winner Cao Wenxuan’s Dragonfly Eyes, (Walker, 2021) translated by Helen Wang, spans fifty years and three generations, taking the reader from France to post-war Shanghai via the re-imagined rural China of the Cultural Revolution.

Gita Ralleigh’ s The Destiny of Minou Moonshine (Zephyr, 2023) and The Voyage of Sam Singh (Zephyr, 2024) are both set in an alternate colonial India, combining historical fantasy, magical realism and steampunk. In the magical world of Dream Hunters (Simon and Schuster, 2024) by Nazima Pathan, twelve-year-old Mimi Malou transforms dreams into healing portions, and travels across India in a bid to save the king. Nizrana Farook’s four book series of adventures stories set in Sri Lanka, each with an animal in the title, began in 2021 with The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, (Nosy Crow), a Waterstones Book of the Month.

Nazneen Ahmed Pathak’s epic City of Stolen Magic (Penguin, 2023) is set in an alternative India in 1855 where the British rulers are stamping out Indian magic, and people are being snatched from their homes and taken overseas.

Folktales set in Asia, continue to be popular. Wu Cheng’en’s 16^th century novel Journey to the West was published by Penguin Classics in 2021 as Monkey King: Journey to the West with a translation, introduction, and notes by Julia Lovell. Scholastic has published South Asian Folktales, Myths and Legends by Sarah Shaffi (2022) and East Asian Folktales, Myths and Legends by Eva Wong Nava (2024), both organised thematically.

Varsha Shah’s series about newspaper editor and Mumbai ‘street-kid’ Ajay, which began with Ajay and the Mumbai Sun (Chicken House 2022), examines the lives of Indians who live in poverty, often homeless, which is a depiction that in many books leads readers to respond with pity.  However, Shah’s characters are dynamic and adventurous, and the books show the vastness and different cultures of India, as Ajay and his friends travel through bustling Mumbai, 720 miles to the pink city of Jaipur, and then a similar distance to the Thar desert over the course of the series.

For younger readers, Tell Me a Story Please by Kyoko Hara and Kazue Takahasi (Museyon 2023) combines elements stories from Japanese story Momotaro, Little Red Riding Hood, and German fairytale, Town Musicians of Bremen.  Chitra Soundar’s fourth Nikhil and Jay, book, Nikhil and Jay Off To India (2023), sees the family visit family in Chennai. Many of Sounders’ other books are set in India also. The first series of Nikhil and Jay debuted on the BBC children’s channel, CBeebies, in October 2024. Jhalak Prize and Branford Boase Award winner Maisie Chan’s Tiger Warrior series began in 2021 with Attack of the Dragon King (Orchard), an action-packed adventure based on the signs in the Chinese Zodiac, set in the the alternative universe of The Jade Kingdom.  In her YA novel, The Cats We Meet Along the Way (Guppy 2022) Nadia Mikail tells the story of Aisha’s trip across Malaysia to find her estranged sister against the backdrop of a meteor heading towards the planet. Through a non-chronological narrative, Mikail offers a poetic portrayal of intergenerational relationships.

Two books with links to Studio Ghibli films have recently been published in translation. Set in Tokyo, written in 1937, and published in English for the first time in 2021, Genzaburo Yoshino’s How Do You Live? (Rider) is both a coming-of-age story and a journey of philosophical discovery, chronicling the discussions between fifteen-year-old Copper and his uncle. The book served as the basis for the Studio Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron by writer-director Hayao Miyazaki.  In Temple Alley Summer (Restless Books, 2021), written by Sachiko Kashiwaba, illustrated by Miho Satake, and translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa, the past and present collide as Akari investigates an ancient temple, where, legend has it, the dead are brought back to life. The book has won multiple awards in the USA where it was published.  Kashiwaba’s earlier The Marvelous Village Veiled in Mist influenced Miyazaki’s classic film Spirited Away.

In keeping with the questioning of boundaries in Amazing Asia, many of the books we discuss here do not fit neatly into traditional genres. Even the term ‘historical fantasy’ covers a great breadth of writing drawing on diverse histories and literary traditions. Young readers need no longer encounter Asia in books through the colonial gaze of books like The Jungle Book and The Secret Garden.

Karen Sands-O’Connor is a Visiting Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield. Her book British Activist Authors Addressing Children of Colour (Bloomsbury 2022) won the 2024 Children’s Literature Association Honor Book Award.

Dr Darren Chetty is a teacher, lecturer and writer with research interests in education, philosophy, racism, children’s literature and hip-hop culture. He is a contributor to The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla, and the author, with Jeffrey Boakye, of What Is Masculinity? Why Does It Matter? And Other Big Questions. He tweets at @rapclassroom.

Books Mentioned

Amazing Asia (Wide Eyed Editions 2024) – Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Jason Lyon

Incredible India – Jasbinder Bilan and Nina Chakrabarti India, (Walker 2022)

Lands of Belonging: A History of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Britain – Donna and Vikesh Amey Bhatt and Salini Perera (Nosy Crow 2022)

Torn Apart – Swapna Haddow (Scholastic 2021)

Jay and Nikhil and Off to India – Chitra Soundar,  (Otter-Barry 2023),

The Line The Drew Through Us  – Hiba Noor Khan (Anderson, 2025)

The Kingdom Over the Sea – Zohra Nabi (Simon and Schuster 2023)

Ajay and the Mumbai Sun (Chicken House 2022) – Varsha Shah

City of Stolen Magic – Nazneen Ahmed Pathak (Penguin, 2023)

Anya’s Quest – Jasbinder Bilan (Walker 2024)

Asha and the Spirit Bird – Jasbinder Bilan

The Destiny of Minou Moonshine – Gita Ralleigh (Zephyr, 2023)

The Voyage of Sam Singh – Gita Ralleigh (Zephyr, 2024)

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant – Nizrana Farook (Nosy Crow 2021)

Bone Talk – Candy Gourlay (David Fickling, 2018)

The Cats We Meet Along the Way – Nadia Mikail (Guppy 2022)

Time Travellers: Secrets and Spies – Sufiya Ahmed (Little Tiger, 2024)

A Very Asian Guide to Indian Food – Julie Ajinkya, illustrated by Aditi Kakade Beaufrand (Gloo Books 2023)

South Asian Folktales, Myths and Legend – Sarah Shaffi (Scholastic 2022)

East Asian Folktales and Legends – Eva Wong Nava (Scholastic 2024)

Monkey King -Wu Chen’en (Penguin Classics 2021)

Dragonfly Eyes – Cao Wenxuan (Walker, 2021)

Dream Hunters – Nazima Pathan (Simon and Schuster, 2024)

Tiger Warrior: Attack of the Dragon King  -Maisie Chan (Orchard, 2021)

Temple Alley Summer – Sachiko Kashiwaba, illustrated by Miho Satake, translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa, (Restless Books, 2021),

How Do You Live? – Genzaburo Yoshino (Rider,2021)

Tell Me a Story Please – Kyoko Hara, Kazue Takahashi (Museyon 2023)