The Shelf · A reader’s own

Sarangi

Eleven years old. An unschooler. The host of Readathon Live.

Most of The Shelf is chosen by the grown-ups of this foundation. This page is not. This is Sarangi’s — what she reads, where her reading has been, and where it hasn’t gone yet. We built it because a child telling you a book is brilliant lands completely differently from an adult telling you to read.

What she hosts

Readathon Live is a small reading circle for independent readers aged eight to twelve. Sarangi runs the hour — the check-in, the game, the book pitch, the talking. Arasu is on every call for safety and to keep time, but the circle belongs to the children in it. Season One has finished. Season Two begins on Saturday, 22 August 2026.

Role
Host, Readathon Live — Seasons One and Two
The circle
Up to ten independent readers, aged eight to twelve
The hour
Saturdays, 8–9 am, over video — eight weeks, Express then Create
Learning
Unschooled. No syllabus, no prescribed reading, no book list to get through.

Full details of the circle, and how to join Season Two, are on the Readathon page.

A map of her reading

Not a tally. A map. Some territories she has walked all over; others she has barely stepped into. The interesting part is the second list — that is where the next few years go.

Well travelled

  • Indian stories and mythology
  • Fantasy and science fiction
  • The old classics
  • Non-fiction that isn’t dull
  • Illustrated and graphic novels
  • Adventure, especially in wild places

Barely stepped into

  • Poetry
  • Plays
  • Mysteries and detectives
  • Books translated from other languages
  • Sport
  • Novels written in verse

The plan is simple: she picks an unlit territory, and we find the way in through a writer she already trusts.

The writers she goes back to

These are the names that recur most on her shelf — the writers whose next book she picks up without being asked.

Roald Dahl Sudha Murty Ross Welford Enid Blyton David Walliams Christopher Paolini Jeff Kinney Geronimo Stilton Raina Telgemeier Lemony Snicket

Just finished

The five most recently closed. Three of them — When I Met the Mama Bear, The Tree of Stories and Candid Tales — are on the Parag Honour List, which is the closest thing Indian children’s publishing has to a mark of quality. She did not know that when she picked them up.

The Man from the Egg

Sudha Murty · unusual tales about the Trinity · Puffin The publisher’s page →

Candid Tales: India on a Motorcycle

Adithi Rao · HarperCollins India Parag Honour List The publisher’s page →

When I Met the Mama Bear: A Forest Guard’s Story

Prerna Singh Bindra · illustrated by Maya Ramaswamy · Speaking Tiger Parag Honour List, 2023 A grown-up’s review, at Mother of Readers →

The Tree of Stories

Rinchin · illustrated by Kanak Shashi · Eklavya Parag Honour List The publisher’s page →

Ghosts

Raina Telgemeier · Scholastic

Recommend her something

This is the part we actually want. If you know a book that belongs in one of the unlit territories — a poem she’d sit still for, a detective worth following, something good in translation — send it. Tell her why, not just what.

Recommend a book → WhatsApp

Or write to info@innercompanion.in. Messages come to us first, then to her.

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