The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman Karen Coats Venkatraman, Padma The Bridge Home. Paulsen/Penguin, 2019 [208p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-3811-2 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-3812-9 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-7 Viji has grown up watching her father beat her mother, but when he turns his hand to her and her intellectually disabled sister, Rukku, she decides it’s time for them to go. They leave their small Indian village to join the ranks of homeless children in Chennai, where they team up with two boys, Muthu and Arul, to become ragpickers in the enormous trash heaps around the city. Unfortunately, the girls attract the attention of some lecherous men, and they have to leave their home under the bridge for a mosquito-infested graveyard, where both Rukku and Muthu contract dengue fever. While their story is almost unbearably tragic, Viji narrates it with a tone of pragmatic determination and wistful hope. She writes the tale in retrospect to Rukku, which gives a subtle hint about Rukka’s fate; her account highlights Rukku’s value to the group of children, which becomes a committed, compassionate, and sometimes even playful family. An author’s note attests to the reality of all of the situations described in the book as having been drawn from first-person accounts; the tenderness of Viji’s love for her sister and her new “brothers” will break hearts and inspire activist longings. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois