A Cloud Called Bhura: Climate Champions to the Rescue

by Bijal Vachharajani

Overview

From award-winning author Bijal Vachharajani, A Cloud Called Bhura is a delightful middle-grade novel that tackles climate change through an inspiring lens of friendship, trust, and community.

Amni wakes up one morning to find the sky taken over by a huge brown cloud. Even as she and her friends start to discover more, their city of Mumbai starts reeling from the changes the cloud brings to the weather. Bhura Cloudus (as the media calls it) causes scalding rain to fall, makes birds flee the city, and suffocates every living thing.

As chaos continues to build and the climate changes brought by Bhura become disastrous, there are several questions on everyone’s mind: What will the powerful politician, Mota Bhai, do now? Can the scientist twins Vidisha and Bidisha find a solution? What about superstar Pavan Kumar and the amazing cloud-sucking machine? Will Bhura ever be driven away—or is it already too late?

Thought-provoking, funny, and inspiring, A Cloud Called Bhura is about changing global climate and the havoc it can cause—as well as the forces of friendship, trust, and community that give hope and help counter this deadly threat to humanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212631280
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Pages:	214
Sales rank:	442,334
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Bijal Vachharajani has a habit of hugging strange trees whom she meets on her travels. When not hugging trees and talking to caterpillars who live on those trees, she’s either reading or writing or editing a children’s book. She is the winner of the AutHer Award for the Best Children’s Book in 2020 and 2022, the former editor of Time Out Bengaluru, and is currently a commissioning editor at Pratham Books. She has a master’s in environment security and peace from the University for Peace. Part of the Abhiyan Library movement, she is now a certified climate worrier.

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2020 AutHer Children’s Book Award
2020 Parag Honour List Book
2020 Crossword Book Award Finalist

N/A

Vachharajani…reminds us that no matter how scary things may get, how imperfectly we may behave or how hopeless we may sometimes feel, the fight for our planet isn’t over.”

Vogue

2024-02-17
When a cloud of pollution casts a haze over Mumbai, it takes a group of kids to figure out what to do.

The enormous cloud appears one morning, blocking the sun and floating like “a turbulent toxic ocean.” The news covers the phenomenon nonstop, dubbing it Bhura (or brown) Cloudus. Scientists, including identical twin climatologist sisters Drs. Vidisha and Bidisha Mehta, try to figure out what’s going on. The government responds with a stunt (which fails spectacularly) in which a Bollywood star tries out the SUK-UP9, a giant vacuumlike device, on Bhura Cloudus. Chapter headings chart rising temperatures and deteriorating air quality as, amid these shenanigans, a diverse group of 13-year-old friends—Amara “Amni” Kumar, Tamanna “Tammy” D., Mithil Shah, and Andrew Thomas—each struggle in their own ways. Tammy, who’s Dalit, lives without air conditioning. Chapati, Mithil’s beloved dog, grows sicker. Amni’s parents talk of moving to Canada. Andrew’s in denial, focusing on studying and Minecraft. The tweens are alternately curious and despairing. Finally, frustrated by the adults’ endless talking and determined to do something, they establish a campaign, uncover a dastardly plot, gain inspiration from real-life heroes, and prove that “All small things count.” Vachharajani’s grown-up villains are deliciously over-the-top yet all too recognizable, just like the effects of climate change described in the story. Young people will resonate with the critical issues, but the seriousness is made bearable by the comic absurdity, clever wordplay, and whimsical graphics.

Clever, sobering, yet ultimately hopeful. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews

Alternating between an urgent call to action and laugh-out-loud funny, A Cloud Called Bhura succeeds most remarkably in creating a memorable cast of characters.”

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