Rating: 
Summary: a good read
Review: I really liked this book. It is amied for younger childern than herother books but really, as always, takes the reader into a world upestby tradition and love.
Rating:
Summary: Cool!
Review: I really liked this book. It starts off with this big festival for this important dude's birthday (Raja I think, don't remember) and with this women- Meenakshi, who is about to give birth on that day to Parvati. That day there are horrible natural disasters that leave the village in ruins, everyone blames Parvati. It was also that day that her fater died. Parvati grows up with a natural charm with animals and dance. She gets offered a chance to live and be taught the art of dance at a school, a school that would pay her family money so they could move out of their in-laws home and build their own. One catch, she can't see them during training, she can only write them. Will Parvati take a leap and go to the school, or will she chose the sanctuary of family? Read it yourself!
Rating: 
Summary: Shiva's Fire
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading Shabanu. I grew up in India and Staples does an excellant job of empathising and describing the people and their lives. I wish she had not written any more books though. Maybe she identified with Shabanu's story or she did better research but Haveli and Shiva's Fire just don't measure up. In Shiva's Fire, she tries to put western words in eastern mouths and the dialogue is very stilted and forced. When she describes settings, the book reads like a travelogue. The ending is confused and silly. Don't waste your money on this book! Try Gloria Whelan's Homeless Bird instead.
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Summary: this book is AWESOME
Review: it's quite extraordinary, this book is very good highly reccomended. The author writes with such lushness and creativity! It's about an indian girl named Parvati she remembers everything and a woman named Priya says her future will be either terrible or great it begins with a cyclone and her father's death, but then she finds a Shiva Nataraja statue and wants to dance like Shiva, she's sent to a school where she excels and becomes a master in no time. Then she finds a boy who is just like her and born on the same day of the terrible cyclone. It's a beautiful story mixed with a bit of fantasy! It's a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: I CAN'T WAIT!
Review: Just like "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman, I can't wait for this third book to come out either! I was absolutely mesmorized by Shabanu and Haveli, especially when you comprehend the struggles they must go through with family and traditions. I was captured into their world! I can't wait for this book!
Rating:
Summary: Oh WOW!! WICKED BOOK!!!
Review: Oh WOW!! I read this book like two years ago and I think I read it again last year but this is SUCH AN AWESOME BOOK!!!! When I was done reading, I went over and read some parts again. What a cool book. The ending is so... Magical! The way she and the raja's son go there seperate ways because Parvati was born to dance! She and the raja's son were born on the exact same day at the exact same time! I don't want to tell the whole thing or ruin the surprise(I probably already did) But what an AMAZING book. It even has translations at the back. BUY IT!!!! LOL NO YOU REALLY SHOULD!!! bye !! >^,,^<
Rating:
Summary: Interesting story, Great setting
Review: Our family of four (mom, dad (me!) and two daughters - 10, 13 yrs) listened to the audio casette version of this book on a long long car ride - driving from Minneapolis to Mt. Rushmore this summer.
Being from India, it was wonderful to have the sights, smells and flavors of our country observed and transmitted with so much realistic detail in the book. Often, we found ourselves at a rest stop and with none of us wanting to get out of the car as we were at a critical juncture in the development of the story.
The story itself is pretty simple, Parvati is a child born with magical powers that puzzle, intimidate and scare people in her village. The family goes through tough times after her father dies and the wonderful bond between Parvati and her mother as well as her brothers are treated with extreme sensitivity. I must confess that there were occasions when I was driving looking straight ahead to keep my family to see that I was crying. Parvati is discovered by a leading dance guru, leaves her family to live in the gurukulam (school) near Madras and grows up to be an extremely accomplished dancer. The final denouement occurs when she returns to the town as a famous dancer.However, I do have some quibbles with the author. While she has set the story in contemporary India, as someone who is familiar with the context, I can say that there are details that don't quite add up. For instance, the ex-maharaja of the province is described as distributing his weight in gold to the public on his birthday - a practice that to the best of my knowledge really stopped in the early part of the century - around WWI. Also in present day India, the local government and the civil service play an important role in managing rescue and rehabilitation efforts after major calamities like the devastating storm in the book. The reliance on the resources of the local maharaja, again is more characteristic of earlier times such as the later part of the 19th century or the early 20th century. However, in my view, the beauty of the narrative and the power of the story are not really diminished by this 'time shift' and it is a masterfully spun tale set in India and generally true to the context. My daughters who are both learning to be dancers from my wife (who is a dancer herself) really identified with Parvati and enjoyed the book enormously.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Reading this book I was struck by the vivid images that Staples painted. Parvarti's rich world was wonderful and fanciful. I loved the story and the characters!
Rating:
Summary: My Fav. Book
Review: Shiva's Fire is 1 of the best books that i have read in a long time. It's about a girl who lives in India (the time is not too clear) and she is from a poorer than poor family. She, however seems to make things around her happen like being able to dance in fire and have fish drawn to her if she sticks her hand in the river. She is a prodige dancer and is constintly dancing. Her reletives however try to squash it out of her becouse the rest of the village has labled her as a freak. Then a man who is the director of a school for dance comes knocking at her door and she is swept away to do what is only natural to her: Dance
I highly recomend this book if you need some thing to lift your spirits.
Rating:
Summary: Shiva's Fire
Review: Shiva's Fire Shiva's Fire, by Suzanne Fisher Staples is an exciting and mysterious book that takes place in the South of India. The book is full of fact and fictional traditions and places. In the story the main character Parvati goes to the gurukulam and school with intensive dance and god/goddess worship study. There she meets her first friend, Nanlini, who gets kidnapped by a band of thieves. After her friend was kidnapped she concentrated only on her dance. After a month the dance instructor told her she was ready for her first performance, which other have to wait at least 5 years to do. In the end Parvati is asked to come and teach at the gurukulam with her own dance instructor, since she has completed the student life of becoming a dancer whom worships the gods. I would recommend this book because it is a thrilling adventure and it shows a different point of view of Indian life style. The author's way of writing the book makes you feel like you are part of the main character going through all of her journeys. One example of a journey is when Parvati is staying at the King's palace and the prince invites her to go wander the palace halls at midnight, but Parvati know she will get into trouble if anyone sees her. In that part of the book the author makes you feel like you are Parvati and wandering the halls at midnight with the handsome prince. You also see a different view of the Indian way of life. Normally when people hear the country India they automatically think of the Taj Mahal. Here you learn that the way of life is much different. A lot of the homes are clay or straw huts and that going to school is a very valuable thing that costs a lot of money. So those are only two of the great reasons of why this book is being recommended. Even though this story was mysterious and exciting some of the words are in Indian which make it confusing. There are at least 10 words in each chapter that are in Indian. This makes it confusing to read sometimes. In the back of the book though, there is a glossary of all the words. So that is why this reason is not a good enough reason to not read this book. If you read it you, you will read the best 270 pages of your life!
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