After her father is beaten and permanently injured by police at a protest for Indian independence from Britain, teenage Vidya and her family must move in with relatives who live by far more traditional Brahmin practices than Vidya’s progressively-minded parents had. Vidya once planned on a university education. Now she is ordered to spend her days after school taking care of a young child and silently serving meals to the men, who debate independence, nonviolence, and whether to fight with the British against the threat of Japanese invasion as World War II rages beyond their nation’s borders. The library upstairs is the only place Vidya feels connected to her old dreams. It is also the place where she converses with Raman, a young man visiting the family who seems to understand her desire for an education, for nonviolence, and for an independent country and life. Debut author Padma Venkatraman writes about a girl who finds her heart both broken and buoyed in unexpected ways in a story that vividly juxtaposes Vidya’s personal family tragedy against the complex social and political times in which the richly realized characters live. (Age 12 and older)

The plot is familiar: an adolescent battles the constraints of her culture and ultimately succeeds. Yet fifteen-year-old Vidya’s story is eminently com pelling, set as it is in 1941 India amid nonviolent protests by Gandhi’s ad herents and the brutal British response. Vidya’s comfortable world and future plans for college crumble when her father’s skull is crushed by a British sol dier. Compelled to live with her father’s family, Vidya dreads the customary arranged marriage relatives threaten for her instead of attending a university as she wishes. Venkatraman gives readers a window into World War II–era India, rich in day-to-day detail and rooted in tradition. jfc

During World War II and the last days of British occupation in India, fifteen-year-old Vidya dreams of attending college. But when her forward-thinking father is beaten senseless by the British police, she is forced to live with her grandfather's large traditional family, where the women live apart from the men and are meant to be married off as soon as possible.

Vidya's only refuge becomes her grandfather's upstairs library, which is forbidden to women. There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house who relishes her intellectual curiosity. But when Vidya's brother makes a choice the family cannot condone, and when Raman seems to want more than friendship, Vidkya must question all she has believed in.

Padma Venkatraman's debut novel poignantly shows a girl struggling to find her place in a mixedup world. Climbing the Stairs is a powerful story about love and loss set against a fascinating historical backdrop.

Read Padma Venkatraman's posts on the Penguin Blog.