The Bicycle Girl: Jyoti Kumari’s Amazing Journey Across India

Gr 1-3–Multiple themes twine through this salute to Jyoti Kumari, a teenager who loyally carried her injured pita (father) on a bicycle over 700 miles from Delhi to their home village of Sirhulli when 2020’s ­COVID-19 lockdown closed India’s train and bus systems. “It’s a little hard, but not a lot,” becomes Jyoti’s mantra as she determinedly sets out on the journey with, the authors write, “the grit of a thousand h­athis” (elephants) “inside her.” Filling ­herself with the “aag” (fire) “of Kali,” she is accompanied in Joshi’s illustrations by Hindu sages and deities from Indra to Ganesha, the remover of obstacles; in the art her bicycle is even transformed into a tiger to carry her and her passenger over the sacred Yamuna River. There is a more general underlying message here too, which is made explicit at the end: She was able to complete her legendary trek because she believed in herself. “And that alone,” the tale concludes, “will take you far.” Along with offering new photos of Jyoti and her family, the back matter cements the quality of her achievement with eloquent discussions of the obstacles she faced—due both to the lockdown and distances involved, and to gender and social expectations related to her family’s marginalized status as Dalits, formerly known as “Untouchables.”