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New trail

And now a home-grown adventure series for young adults

PHOTO: SAMPATH KUMAR G.P.

CUE FOR A MASTER Pankaj Advani reading from the book

Every time you read a Famous Five adventure, did you secretly wish the kid sleuths would chase robbers in our own crowded streets instead of a quaint English village and had samosa and tea instead of ginger beer and marshmallows?

If that's about what you wanted by way of a naati adventure series, your dream has just come true.

Nikki's takes off

Wisdom Tree has launched Adventures of Nikki by G.S. Dutt, billed the first-ever fiction series for young adults in India. Launching the first book in the series, An Endless Journey, at the Oxford Bookstore, publisher Shobit Arya said there is room for two million books in this segment and the numbers might double in three years. The potential has been revealed by, what else, but the phenomenal success the Harry Potter series. No wonder then that barely weeks after the first book has hit the stands, Wisdom Tree already has the next set of six books all worked out and ready to be rolled out of the press.

At the launch, Dutt, who has held many management positions and written books on management, even gave brief storylines of the books to follow.

The occasion saw a rather unlikely chief guest: snooker champion Pankaj Advani — who admitted to not having read the book and seemed to feel a bit odd about holding a book instead of a cue in hand — read what's perhaps the shortest excerpt ever read at a book launch. About a paragraph from Chapter One! A particularly dramatic one, though, where the young protagonist Nikki spots the murderer coming out of a cruise cabin with a blood-stained knife.

Pankaj was just the right person to launch the book, said Dutt, considering that the motto of the series is: "You dare and you will get it."

Sporty touch

Perhaps to drive this motto home a little more forcefully, Oxford Bookstore and Wisdom Tree had roped in two more sportspersons for the event — former cricketer Syed Kirmani and hockey coach Harinder Singh. The two graciously held the book and smiled for the photo shoot.

B.S.

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