[Book] Genius Games

Lately, I have been reading a lot of books supposedly meant for pre-teens and young adults. The original purpose was to screen the material for my eight-year-old daughter. But somewhere along the way, I realised that I was actually enjoying these books. Many of these books deal with "simple" facts of life, like compassion, empathy, peer-pressure, envy, fear of the known or the unknown. Facts that can easily be scaled for age. We push our children to excel in studies, sports, arts, music. But are we making an effort to sow the seeds of compassion and empathy. How does one teach a child to place himself or herself in another person's shoes, to try and feel their pleasures, pains, fears, sorrows. If, and this is a big if, you had a choice between having a child with an IQ breaking the sound barrier, and a child who would give the Buddha a run for his money, which one would you choose? Hopefully, middle grounds are not getting too old-fashioned.

Loosely along these lines is a book I recently read called Genius Games by Narinder Dhami (of the Bend it like Beckham fame - she novelized the movie). The basic plot of the story involves sixth-grader Jack and his little sister, Annie, a kindergartener. Although abandoned by their father ten months after the birth of Annie, Jack had managed to overcome his anger, pull himself together, and carry on with his life. Things were just fine and dandy for him, except for one single thing that kept tugging at his heart strings. Annie was a child prodigy. Bilingual (having taught herself Spanish) with a fascination for Shakespeare and the Financial Times, she knew just the right combination of buttons to get Jack's hair all atizzy. Not exactly the right atmosphere for fostering compassion and empathy. Also, a penchant for lecturing her peers on the workings of the solar system, had left her quite without any friends. I guess, no matter what your age, being different is hardly the easiest condition to live with. Do we fear people who are different? Do we believe that their condition is contagious? This got me seriously thinking about my own prejudices.

Anyway back to the book. To counter her loneliness, Annie invents (or so Jack thinks) an imaginary playmate, Sarah Slade, a time-traveler from the twenty-fifth century, visiting the twenty-first century to research for a school project! Was this one of Annie's famous mind games designed solely to push Jack over the brink, or was it closer to home than that? Will this cosmic stranger teach Jack to love and accept his sister for what she is, or would she make matters worse? Can Jack place himself in Annie's shoes and feel her loneliness and despair? At the end, one can only admire the immerse potential of the human brain. We take so many things for granted that sometimes we can hardly see the "wood for the trees". Maybe (hopefully), it is still not to late for me to overcome my prejudices.

And if you want to know how the book ends, of course, you will have to read it for yourself.

Rating: * * * * * (out of 5)
Age: 10+