Nura and the Immortal Palace

Product Information

Our young heroine Nura works hard in the mica mines to earn a little money, for a great deal of effort, to help support her family in this enthralling new fantasy series. Nura has heard tales all her life about the amazing Demon’s Tongue – a piece of mica that would make her so rich her family would never need to work again. She digs and digs, deeper and deeper, until her efforts contribute to a mine collapse in which her friend Faisal is missing.

The winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023 have been announced, with one winner from each of the four categories announced: Picture book, Children... Along with telling a compelling, multi-layered story, Khan is also skilled at creating c omplex characters readers will be drawn to…”— Canadian Review of Materials From the Publisher A character I liked: Nura. She is witty and so I liked how perceptive she was, despite never having been to school. The standout worldbuilding strikes an impressive balance between realism and fantasy, presenting the harrowing experiences of child labor while also joyfully describing a lavish jinn resort with all manner of curious and memorable details in a way that does not diminish the impact of the former."— BCCB

An enchanting portal fantasy full of hope but one that also brings to light the harsh realities of poverty that are present around the world. History repeats itself. Once again, we fall to chaos… but we’ll rise again. And again. An once more.” Nura is such a delightful voice to read through the book! I was impressed with how determined she was to earn for her family even if it meant grappling with the mica mining. And later on, I appreciated how she absorbed the lessons from different encounters, she always has her family as her priority. She’s a protective elder sister and daughter but also a caring friend. Nura has worked all her life in the mica mines, earning just enough to keep her family afloat – and to enjoy the odd delicious gulab jamun from the market. Some day she’s going to find the Demon’s Tongue, a legendary treasure buried deep in the mines, and she’ll never have to worry about money again. But there’s a dark truth lurking beneath all that glitter and gold, and when Nura crosses the owner’s son and is banished to the working quarters, she realizes she isn’t the only human who’s ended up in the hotel’s clutches. Faisal and the other missing children are there, too, and if Nura can’t find a way to help them all escape, they’ll be bound to work for the hotel forever. Set in a rural industrial town in Pakistan and full of hope, heart, and humor, Nura and the Immortal Palace is inspired by M.T. Khan’s own Pakistani Muslim heritage.

This is a stunning, colourful story, vividly created for the reader. The world of the jinn feels frantic, frenzied and dangerous to be part of. There are grotesque characters with uncontrollable emotions and no morals who keep children - human and jinn alike - to do all their bidding. Nura is a fabulous heroine; a determined young girl who undergoes her own transformation as she realizes the true priorities in life are not what you have but who you have in your life. Nura wants what she can't have: money, wealth and power. Her days are long and difficult, mining for mica; it's a dirty and dangerous job but she does it to help her mum, to bring some extra money into the family, to help give her younger siblings a little extra. But what she really wants is to find The Demon's Tongue. Some say it's a myth, but for Nura and the other child miners, it's the ultimate goal: if they find it, they will want for nothing for the rest of their lives. But Nura takes too many risks and when her digging causes a mine to collapse and her best friend to get trapped, Nura takes it upon herself to save him. A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.Sparkling with magic, Nura whisks you from the mica mines of Pakistan to the dreamy and dangerous realm of the Jinn. A twisty, atmospheric tale with a fierce protagonist, whose voice lingered in my mind long after I'd finished reading. -- Jennifer Bell - author of Wonderscape Nura is fiercely protective of her loved ones and would do anything to get her hands on some gulab jamun and I absolutely loved her. Khan has done a brilliant job in capturing both her boldness and the naivety she has about the world and I really valued the subtler message on the importance of education that is brought into the narrative as we follow her on her journey in this story too. A riotous adventure with colour and a lot of heart, featuring an intrepid protagonist who refuses to let anything defeat her."— Nafiza Azad, author of The Candle and the Flame My Thoughts Before Reading: When I first heard about this book I was excited! But I at the time had no intention to read it. I knew it was going to be dealing with a heavy subject matter and I wasn’t sure that I was prepared to read that.

This high-stakes, immersive fantasy will be sure to stay with readers long after they finish it."— Booklist, starred review I'm glad I decided to make this one of my API Heritage Month 2022 reads. Can't wait for this to come out so I can get myself a finished copy! History repeats itself. Once again, we fall to chaos. But we’ll rise again. And again. And once more.” Nura is 12 years old and has worked all her life in the mica mines, hoping to someday find a legendary buried treasure: the Demon's Tongue.Aru Shah and the End of Time meets Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in this mesmerizing portal fantasy that takes readers into the little-known world of Jinn. But sometimes,” he sighs, ruffling my hair, “if you dig hard enough, you can find sparkles in the dirt, can’t you?” The way the author stresses education in this book was so powerful! The author’s note really had me thinking about how many children in the world don’t have access to education and that’s just heartbreaking. Nura was the kind of character who entirely gives up on knowledge because she just can’t afford it. But her experiences in the djinn realms made her think otherwise and I’m very sure everyone reading this book would be so proud of her once the reach the end. Nura and the Immortal Palace was said to have shades of the Studio Ghibli movie Spirited Away. (Which, of course, meant that I scrambled to get an ARC as soon as I could.) And let me tell you, it absolutely delivered on this promise. We see what happens when the veneer of beauty and magic is peeled away, revealing the darkness within. This was a theme that was very much present in Spirited Away. Nura and the Immortal Palace, I’m happy to report, does it justice.