The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art

Top 100 pick because:

I was loving the narrative flow, and the artwork already when the big reveal happened and I gasped. I teared up and just gasped. This is a story that needs to be told. Simple white background with brilliant, colorful depictions of Indian people, culture, plants, animals, and art-even the font works perfectly for this story. This makes me want to learn more about Ned Chand and the "Rock Garden".

I picked up this book because professional reviews indicated that it might be a good picture-book nonfiction selection for my library's Battle of the Books program. After having read it, I am hoping it gets chosen for next year's list! Students are always interested in true stories about people who've accomplished remarkable things. In addition to fitting that bill, this title is about someone new to many U.S. readers; provides them with a glimpse into the history and culture of a country many of them know little about; and has a two-page author's note that fleshes out the information presented in the main text. The illustrations are lovely; I also appreciated the foldout spread with actual photos of Chand's creations.

I received a free show more copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. show less

The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art has won the South Asia Book Award for Children's & Young Adult Literature in 2019. The book is about a Indian kid named Nek who as a kid heard stories and his mind got filled with them. He had a passion to build things and when people ran him out his home he had to live somewhere else and he made a secret place to build things but it was not permitted but the people of Chandigarh supported him and he kept building until his death but they honored his place of building. The literary element of this book is the character , we know this because the character progresses as the story goes on and we can also see how he does things throughout his life. The Diversity show more Focus is on Indians as the main character of this book is Indian and we can see how their culture is different then ours such as having to be farmers, most Americans aren't obliged to become farmers but he was. show less