Vidya is a young teen girl living with her family in India at the beginning of World War II. After her father is severly injured, she is forced with her family to move in with her father's family. She faces struggles at every turn from her living situation, school, her desire to go to college and the overall caste system of India. Her only solace comes from her grandfather's library, at the top of the stairs. While the world is waging war outside, Vidya escapes into a world of learning and understanding that only comes from the library. She at first thinks that the war is beyond her world, but she soon learns that both WWII and even greater war within the Indian people are right on her doorstep.
Climbing the Stairs is a great story about a young girl who struggles against the constrains of her society. She wants to be more than just a married housewife, which is the expectation of women at that time and from her caste. She wants to go to college and eventually become a doctor like her father, the one who has inspired her. But her father's traditional family make that task a difficult one. For teens, they will relate to Vidya's struggle to find herself among the ideas of what others think as well as adjusting to a whole new life. She is at a new school with no friends, she is looked down upon by her extended family and is now unsure of herself when faced with a potential boyfriend. In the beginning the story lags a little, slowing the pace of the book. However, after the incident with her father, things begin to happen very quickly and pull the reader into her world. Because Vidya is so open and expressive in the book, it is easy to empathize with her and know where she is coming from and what she is thinking. I think that teens will not only appreciate her honesty but also her courage in all the trials that she faces. The book is wonderfully written and an interesting perspective of World War II.
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