As a child, Sayantani DasGupta was an avid reader. No genre was off-limits to her, and she inhaled books like air. Like many children, she imagined herself in those books, longing to be a part of the featured families, wishing for their hair and lives, eager to have their experiences. However, she found something lacking in these stories she loved: Herself. If someone who reflected her image and cultural experiences was never in these stories, did that mean that she and her experiences were not good enough? Dr. DasGupta says, “There was always something missing, but it took me years to understand this as a problem with the lack of diversity in the stories I was reading and the movies I was seeing, and NOT a problem with myself.” (Sayantanidasgupta.com)
Dr. DasGupta, writer, pediatrician, professor, and D-E parent, visited the third, fourth, and fifth grades for a virtual author visit on Friday, May 22, 2020, and shared with students the importance of seeing oneself reflected in books. She explained that she realized that her own children experienced the same lack of reflection in the books that they were reading and decided to take the advice of Toni Morrison, who said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” This is when she began writing her book series, Kiranmala and the Kingdom of Beyond, which features a bright, funny, and brave Indian girl as the heroine, set in a world loosely based on the beloved Bengali folktales told to DasGupta by her grandmother on summer visits to India. The idea of being able to write the stories you wish you could see really resonated with D-E fourth grader, Owen M, who told Dr. DasGupta that he liked “the concept of if there’s no book that you really feel fits you, write your own.”
Dr. DasGupta engaged the students with her own story, but also asked them questions, drawing them into her experiences. She spoke about the books, movies and television shows she loved as a kid, discussed universal themes in stories across cultures, and shared parts of the Bengali folktales with which she grew up, and which inspired her book series.
The virtual visit wrapped up with several questions and comments from students. Masha, fourth grader, wanted to know how she could get her hands on a copy of the books, right away. Michael, also in fourth grade, wanted to know what was the hardest book Dr. DasGupta ever read (The hardest book Michael read so far is Shakespeare’s Sonnets). Kenan, third grader, wanted to know how many times Dr. DasGupta’s editors sent her book back to her to make changes. As the students logged off with thank yous and goodbyes, some lingered, wanting to be the very last ones to go.
Thank you to Dr. DasGupta for gifting us with her time and sharing this inspiring presentation!
To learn more about Dr. DasGupta’s work, parents may be interested in watching her TEDx Talk. Here is the link and a brief description from TEDx: Radical Imagination Children’s Literature Changes the World: Sayantani DasGupta
Stories matter and how they are told matter even more. Therefore, a story told from the perspective of an immigrant child can change the world for that child, for the next generation of children and ultimately, the world. Originally trained in pediatrics and public health, Dr. Sayantani DasGupta teaches at the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine, the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, all at Columbia University. She is also the author of the Bengali folktale and string theory middle grade fantasy series Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond from Scholastic (The Serpent’s Secret, 2018; Game of Stars, 2019; The Chaos Curse, 2020). She is a member of We Need Diverse Books.