Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean

December 19, 2016
Twenty Indian and Australian authors—including Isobelle Carmody, Justine Larbalestier, Anita Roy, and Vandana Singh—deliver a feminist fantasy and science fiction anthology, a mix of short stories, comics, and a screenplay-style entry. In Margo Lanagan’s empowering “Cat Calls,” a large group of students band together to give some catcalling men a taste of their own medicine. Writer Annie Zardi and artist Mandy Ord collaborate on a potent graphic story in which Anarkali, a legendary Mughal figure purportedly entombed alive as punishment for a love affair, realizes her power and disrupts the story. A girl embraces her voracious hunger for life, expanding until she is “like a balloon stretched translucent, to bursting point” and is “saturated with living” in Amruta Patil’s illustrated story “Appetite.” In Alyssa Brugman’s contemplative “Weft,” a woman trades her kidney in order to afford cosmetic enhancement, only momentarily considering what is lost, literally and figuratively, in the trade. While some stories are more accessible than others, each makes a meaningful contribution, providing a unique perspective through which to view and consider the experience of being a girl. Ages 14–up.