Rishabh the rat and Shashee the spider are quite happy with the way they are: rummaging around in Venkat Thatha’s wonderful, musty, dusty, rare herbs shop. Until, that is, they stumble upon a magical powder and find themselves transformed into human children. It’s not easy being a kid: there’s school, and homework, wearing clothes and — yuk! — having to use soap… but even worse, their very home and the entire city are under threat from an evil moneylender and property dealer known as the Shark. Can Rishabh solve the cryptic clues that lead to King Kempe Gowda’s fabulous treasure before the Shark can get to it? Will the vermin survive Ajji’s herbal pesticide attack? Will Shashee be able to spin her way out of this tangled web of intrigue? With the help of other children, friendly cockroaches, cheeky mosquitoes, a very Big Bandicoot and a platoon of plucky rodents, they set out to prove that no problem is too big even for the smallest of creatures. “These are exciting times for children, with fiction such as Monideepa Sahu’s Riddle of the Seventh Stone — a unique take on ordinary events and creatures that we take so much for granted, things that get extraordinary in her gifted hands.”
