Diwali – a joyous festival of light and celebrations with family and friends; lighting up faces with smiles, homes with myriads of lamps and coloured lights and the surroundings with the resounding noise of umpteen ‘patakas’. And not everyone is happy. Babies, the elderly, the sick; birds and animals, too, find the loud exploding sounds disturbing and sometimes even frightening. Baby lips pucker up with fear, roosting birds take off from their perch and animals start to whimper and hide.

In keeping of the traditional wisdom of an iron hand in a velvet glove, Ms Sorenson, brings out the message of noise pollution beautifully in her heartwarming story, Lucky, It’s Diwali!. Presented as an autobiography of a little puppy, it's a tale of love, caring and friendship wherein, Lucky is spending his first Diwali with his new family. The story starts with the poor little puppy getting petrified of the sounds of crackers bursting, rockets speeding into the skies and goes on to narrate how he finally wins the love and affection from all the members of his new family.

The only thing missing in the book is the flavour of Diwali. A little child reading the book and looking forward to it might be disappointed. 

The illustrations are bold black-and-white line drawings, perfect for colouring, which is an added bonus.

A story with a timely message that will help children understand and appreciate the necessity of the new Supreme Court ruling that restricts the number of hours that crackers can be lit. Kudos to them and to Awaaz Foundation who is relentlessly fighting the noise pollution in our country and to authors like Ms Sorenson who has so effectively woven the message into the narration.