The Little Rainmaker

Roopal Kewalya's The Little Rainmaker is a story for 8 year olds about a girl who wants to make it rain for her grandfather.

What happens

Anoushqa has never seen rain. The last shower fell before she was born. Nobody drinks real water any more. People buy lab-made H2O in tiny bottles and clean themselves with a dry-vacuum. Nobody steps outside without sun lotion, a mask and a body protector.

She's ten, lives in India and wants to be a TV news anchor (she practises the sign-off in the mirror). Her favourite person is Grampa, a storyteller with a numbered rule for everything and glasses held together with wire.

Grampa remembers rain. He tells her about floating paper boats down a ravine when he was a little boy. She's not sure she believes a word of it.

Then Grampa collapses at her birthday party, and she overhears her parents saying he doesn't have long to live. His one wish is to feel rain again before he dies. So Anoushqa decides she'll make it happen. How hard can it be?

It's a lovely mix of a big idea and very ordinary school life. There's a best friend who won't help when her science volcano goes wrong in front of the whole class, a bully whose dad is building a humidified mall with a real-water swimming pool, and a surprise maths test she makes a mess of because her head is full of clouds.

Anoushqa is great company. Her head is full of questions (who decided an hour should have sixty minutes?) and she's quite sure she'd run the country better than the grown-ups.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

There are sad bits early on. Her dog Pixie died from the heat the year before, which comes up in the opening pages, and Grampa's illness sits over the whole story. A classmate's family also ends up in hospital when their humidifier breaks. If your reader is dealing with a poorly grandparent, this might be one to share.

It isn't gloomy, though. There's plenty of warmth and a fair bit of cheek, including a sick note she writes for herself!

What to read next

For another child who'll go to any lengths for a grandparent stuck in hospital, try The Runaways by Ulf Stark. Its narrator crosses the city on his own to visit a grandpa who hates his hospital bed.