What would you do if your playground was going to be converted into a shopping mall? Would you be okay with your games period being cancelled indefinitely? Petu and his friends certainly aren’t going to take it lying down!
Petu Pumpkin Freedom Fighter deals with heavy themes in the lightest possible way — with not just humour, but hilarity. In this book for slightly older readers than the hOle books, Petu and the rest of his Awesome Fivesome have bigger trouble at hand. It’s no longer about a tiffin thief or about his friends suspecting that Petu Pumpkin is a cheat. Now, they need to get together and stage a protest because their school playground is slyly being appropriated by people in power. Even though the themes are bigger, Arundhati Venkatesh’s trademark humour remains the same!
I love to see how themes and ideas overlap across literature. For instance, the children in Petu Pumpkin Freedom Fighter and Dhara’s Revolution complain about the same thing — that no one ever asks them what they want! What makes Freedom Fighter stand out, however, is the quirky characters and the drama. This slim early middle-grade book is a quick, fun read, one that I am likely to introduce to my book club very soon!
| Title | Petu Pumpkin Freedom Fighter |
| Author Illustrator | Arundhati Venkatesh Shilpa Ranade |
| Tags | Early Middle Grade, Humour |
| Rating (out of 5) | 4.5 |
| Age-group | 9+ |
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