Maya — Mahak Jain

The electricity in Maya's house has gone out again. Worse, she is afraid of the dark  -- and her fear has been even worse since her father died. Now it feels as if the darkness will never go away.

Maya's mother distracts her with a legend about the banyan tree, which saved the world from the first monsoon by drinking up the floodwaters, and growing tall and strong. Later that night, unsettled by the noises around her, Maya revisits the story in her imagination. She ventures deep into the banyan tree, where she discovers not darkness but life: snakes slither, monkeys laugh, and elephants dance. Maya pushes her imagination even further to call up memories of her father, helping to soothe her fear and grief.

Elly MacKay mixes miniature-paper-theater art with spellbinding shadow puppetry to play with darkness and light, giving Maya's real, fantasy, and story-within-a-story worlds unique treatment -- and making Maya's world come alive on the page.