Ten-year-old Kabir doesn\u2019t fit the boxes everyone else does; he draws crayon monsters in his science textbook and keeps a list of things he\u2019s not allowed to make up that includes imaginary friends, voices of aliens who live on the roof, and shadows. After a fight and a public rebuff from a popular older boy, Kabir disappears\u2014triggering police interrogations and media frenzy centered on a scapegoated stranger. De Suza, an Indian author based in Singapore, writes with verbal playfulness and structural inventiveness: verse interludes, concrete poetry, lists, and metafictional asides that invite readers to write their own endings. Bhembre\u2019s grayscale art warmly renders the Indian cast of characters. At times, the relentless whimsy undercuts the emotional stakes; the climactic town-hall reconstruction\u2014each character narrating a piece of Kabir\u2019s odyssey\u2014strains plausibility, and the sheer volume of embellishment blunts the reunion\u2019s impact, though the message about seeing neurodivergent-coded children clearly is heartfelt. Frank references to a missing child\u2019s possible death, including mentions of suicide and morgues, may unsettle some sensitive readers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ten-year-old Kabir doesn\u2019t fit the boxes everyone else does; he draws crayon monsters in his science textbook and keeps a list of things he\u2019s not allowed to make up that includes imaginary friends, voices of aliens who live on the roof, and shadows. After a fight and a public rebuff from a popular older boy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}