Climbing the Stairs

Venkatraman, P. (2008). Climbing the stairs. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. ISBN 978-0-399-24746-0

Why read this book

In this Cinderella tale set in India at the beginning of World War II, 15-year-old Vidya endures humiliations at the hands of her evil extended family after her father is beaten senseless by the British colonial police.

Plot summary

Fifteen-year-old Vidya lives an idyllic life with her older brother Kitta, her parents, their kind and devoted servants, and the family dog in Bombay, India, in the early days of World War II. Vidya attends an expensive girls’ school and dreams of going to college, a dream that seems to be shattered when British colonial police savagely beat her father during a non-violent pro-independence protest. With damage to her father’s brain so severe that he no longer recognizes people around him, Vidya and her family must move to Madras to live in her grandfather’s traditional compound with all his extended family. Vidya’s evil aunts and uncles and hopelessly conventional cousin make her life miserable, treating her like a servant and referring to her father as an idiot. Although her evil aunts try to arrange a marriage for her, Vidya will not allow her dreams of college to be taken away.

Critical evaluation

Unfortunately, this first novel lacks literary substance. The characters are one-dimensional, either kind, funny, compassionate good guys or mean, nasty villains. The plot is simple, linear, and conventional. Dynamics with the potential to complicate the story, such as Kitta’s brother’s decision to join the British army to fight against Hitler despite his family’s commitment to non-violence, are presented too shallowly to provoke much thought. Her father’s brain damage depresses the spunky heroine and provides a reason for her to decide to become a doctor some day, but the writing conveys no real angst. The heroine experiences humiliating situations, but the reader does not feel her humiliation. The last-minute happy ending is so complete that dear old dad’s brain damage, while unresolved, just doesn’t seem like such a problem any more. Given the setting in colonial India, a protagonist who falls from the upper middle class, and an extended family organized on hierarchical lines, the concept of privilege is the elephant in the room that the author fails to explore.

All that said, I would buy this book for a high school library. We can never have too many models of spunky girls, no matter how weak the literature, and the there just aren’t that many stories about Hindu families in colonial India for students to learn from.

About the author

Padma Venkatraman, who writes children’s books under the name Padma V.T., was born in India in 1969. After completing her B.A. in chemistry and environmental science, she moved to the United States and earned her Ph.D. in oceanography at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. She is currently the director of diversity affairs at the University of Rhode Island, where she also teaches in the graduate school of oceanography. Although Climbing the Stairs is her first young-adult novel, she has written many books and articles for younger readers, most of them on science and nature topics (1).

Genre: Historical fiction; Life is hard

Curriculum ties

Modern world history — The setting of the story in India in the early 1940s may provide young readers with useful insights into Hindu culture, the non-violent movement for independence from Great Britain, and the role of India in World War II. This potential is strongly supported by a Web site associated with the book (http://www.climbingthestairsbook.com/index.html) that lists numerous resources on Indian history, philosophy, and culture. The resources are cleverly organized into topics based on the books that various characters in Climbing the Staircase may have recommended themselves.

Book-talking ideas

• What do you do if you are raised in a family that champions non-violence but you don’t think that non-violence has any chance of defeating Adolph Hitler?

• What do you do if Prince Charming is just too perfect, doing all the right things without you even needing to explain them to him?

Reading level/interest age

A review in the School Library Journal (2) suggests that Climbing the Stairs is appropriate for grades 7 to 9. Since the setting of the novel aligns with the content of California’s 10th grade Modern World History course, I would stretch the recommendation for age of interest to 10th grade.

Challenge issues

None. The story is so saccharine that it is difficult to imagine anyone objecting to anything in it, although many Indians might be saddened that a shallow novel is one of the few ways for young people in the United States to learn about Indian culture and history.

Responses

Those (such as myself) who are not impressed with the literary qualities of the book should be directed to the substantial list of awards it has received at http://www.climbingthestairsbook.com/reviews.html

Why I chose to read this book

My school district’s librarians chose this book as the monthly selection for their Young Adult reading group.

Footnotes

(1) Reading Rainbow. (n.d.). Padma T.V. Retrieved September 2, 2009, from http://readingrainbow.in/readingbuffet-author-padma.shtml

(2) Soltan, R. (2008, May). Climbing the stairs. School Library Journal, 54(5), 140. Retrieved September 2, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=31963924&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live