One of the books which overcome this limitation is "Vedas & Upanishads for children" by Roopa Pai. Though it may be over the heads of most children, it is certainly accessible to nerdy teens & adults. Emboldened by her success with her earlier book on Gita for the same audience, the computer engineer turned author has done an astonishing feat in producing a page turner in this book.
Though the writing is cool & groovy in its approach to suit the targeted age group, she never dumbs down the content to suit them. For example she uses the "Happy Birthday" tune & Maria teaching the children music in "The Sound of Music", to illustrates the metre (chandas) of the Vedic hymns.
The first 124 pages of this 412 page book is devoted to an overview of the Vedas with all necessary background information. The rest of the book deals with the ten principal Upanishads in some depth. How the Upanishad teaching can be applied at home, school & workplace is also delineated. She exhorts the readers to "Don't settle for being human - discover the God that you really are."
Illustrated by Sayan Mukherjee, it is beautifully printed in dark type (eye-friendly) by Hachette publishers with an eye-catching colour cover. The footnotes, usually in smaller type at the bottom of the page in other books, is printed in normal type after the paragraph in the main text, with an eye-catching special marginal border. As this book, acquired for young readers may be a guide to them life-long, a hard cover edition with colour illustrations would be very welcome.
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