Keeping Corner

by Kashmira Sheth

Overview

Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists. The gold ones were plain so I didn't mind taking them off, but I loved wearing my milk-glass bangles and the lakkh bracelets.

"A widow can't wear bangles," she said. "They are signs of a woman's good fortune. When your husband dies it's over."

"What if my good fortune comes back?"

"It doesn't."

Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old Leela had been spoiled all her life. She doesn't care for school and barely marks the growing unrest between the British colonists and her own countrymen. Why should she? Her future has been planned since her engagement at two and marriage at nine.

Leela's whole life changes, though, when her husband dies. She's now expected to behave like a proper widow: shaving her head and trading her jewel-toned saris for rough, earth-colored ones. Leela is considered unlucky now, and will have to stay confined to her house for a year-keep corner-in preparation for a life of mourning for a boy she barely knew.

When her schoolteacher hears of her fate, she offers Leela lessons at home. For the first time, despite her confinement, Leela opens her eyes to the changing world around her. India is suffering from a severe drought, and farmers are unable to pay taxes to the British. She learns about a new leader of the people, a man named Gandhi, who starts a political movement and practices satyagraha-non-violent protest against the colonists as well as the caste system. The quiet strength of satyagraha may liberate her country. Could she use the same path to liberate herself?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786838608
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	03/17/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 2.30(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kashmira Sheth was inspired to write her first novel, Blue Jasmine, by her own experiences as a teenager who moved from India to the United States. The book went on to win an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award. Kashmira is also the author of the young adult book, Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet. Kashmira lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her family.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-9
Married at age 9, 12-year-old Leela looks forward to her anu , the ceremony to send her to her husband's home. Instead, his sudden death forces the young widow to stay in her own home for a year and face a bleak future. Suddenly, her life is "living death." The privileged Brahmin child living in rural India in 1918 can no longer wear the brightly colored clothing and beautiful jewelry she loves; her head is shaved. Even after her year in isolation, others will shun her or worse. Luckily for Leela, her older brother finds a teacher to tutor her, preparing her for examinations that might allow her to go on to school and a career in a less traditional city, if her family can be convinced. Thanks to the teacher's assignment to note and record details of the simple world in which Leela is confined, readers are immersed in sensory detail: the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells that surround her. Leela reads the newspaper, learning about Gandhi, whose influence is just beginning to be felt in a series of nonviolent protests. Her recognition of the unfairness of her situation and her growing personal strength is paralleled by changes in her country, long ruled by the English and by rigid tradition. As in Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet (Hyperion, 2006), Sheth provides a first-person narrative with a strong protagonist and rich sense of place, with the added bonus of an unusual historical perspective.
—Kathleen IsaacsCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

In Gujarat, India, during World War I, Mohandas Gandhi has opened an ashram attracting followers to his movement for Indian self-determination. In a nearby village, Leela, 12, married at age nine, looks forward to moving to her husband's home. When he dies unexpectedly, Brahman custom requires her confinement at home for a year, "keeping corner." Prohibited from ever remarrying, her head shaved and pretty saris put away, Leela faces a barren future. Her loving family is heartbroken, but only Leela's brother has the courage to buck tradition, hiring a tutor to educate her. This powerful and enchanting novel juxtaposes Leela's journey to self-determination with the parallel struggle of her family and community to follow Gandhi on the road to independence from British rule. Among the vivid and appealing characters is India itself. Natural and human cycles-dry and monsoon seasons, landscape and animals, customs religious and secular-are rendered with a rich sensual palate. We leave Leela and her country poised to cross the threshold of autonomy at that enchanting moment when anything seems possible. (Fiction. 12+)

Kirkus Reviews