# The Secret Kingdom: NEK Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art, Candlewick Press 2018

The Secret Kingdom is a nonfiction childrens’ picture book by American author Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Claire A. Nivola. It was published on February 13, 2018 by Candlewick Press. The book tells the story of Nek Chand, an artist who preserved his culture by creating the Chandigarh Rock Garden after fleeing violence following the India-Pakistan partition of 1947. Chand recreated his village with the ruins of the villages he found beneath the modern city, which became a cultural haven to residents and visitors alike.
School Library Journal reviews The Secret Kingdom as a “captivating biographical narrative”, bringing life to the “kingdom of magic and imagination”. Publishers’ Weekly describes it as a “gratifying” story, conveying art’s power to “revitalize and restore.”
The Secret Kingdom received the NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor and the South Asian Book Award in 2019.

## Plot

Long ago, Nek Chand Saini lived in the village of Berian Kalan, a small but vibrant community near the Himalayas. He loved the different stories his friends and family told him with each changing season, and cherished the cultural richness and beauty in his community's simple lifestyle. Inspired by the stories passed along to him, Nek built a small city from his imagination as a child. After he grew up, he became a farmer and passed on the stories to other children.
However, his community violently split into Pakistan and India in 1947, and his Hindu family was forced to flee the primarily Muslim Pakistan and move to India.
In India, he moved to Chandigarh, a modern city which lacked his home's cultural richness and connections. He found acres of jungle owned by the government and, despite not being permitted to build, began to fill the area with artifacts and pieces of the ancient villages that he found beneath the modern city.
Seven years later, he began rebuilding the village he remembered by reconstructing walls with porcelain shards and concrete dyed red with brick dust, rescuing plants from the city dump, and creating sculptures of people and animals out of items he found beneath the city.
Fifteen years later, the government discovers his building, and officials want to destroy it. However, the people of Chandigarh, curious to see Nek Chand's creations, came to the forest and began to tell stories about it after revisiting parts of their past in the city. They donated money, tools, and materials to sustain the project, helping people connect with their culture despite the challenges the garden faces every year.

## Theme 1

Resilience
Resilience is a major theme seen throughout The Secret Kingdom and is brought forth by the protagonist, Nek Chand. According to Seemi Aziz-Raina, Chand’s story is one of “bloodshed, displacement, and refugees”, as Chand is forced to flee India for Pakistan following the 1947 partition and loses “everything he loves and cherishes”, according to a review by the National Council of Teachers of English. He works through this trauma by turning to art, which allows him to use the stories from his past to create a monument paying tribute to it.
He again persists through the government’s efforts to destroy the rock garden when they discover it, continuing to expand and create the garden for the community to enjoy, according to Jaime Greenwood’s review. In doing this, he not only works through his own trauma, but creates a gathering point at which his community grew - connected by memories that his artwork helped draw out. Through the continuous presentation of Chand’s difficulties and ability to overcome them throughout the book, Barb Rosenstock contends the virtues of resilience, and emphasizes the significance in community and the power of story in making that possible. She also maintains that resilience can be a point at which a community can grow out of, connected by shared experiences, challenges, and triumphs.

## Theme 2

Power of Storytelling
The 2019 Orbis Pictus Book Award Reviews demonstrate how the power of storytelling is seen early in the book, as the “stories that shaped [Nek Chand’s] world, imagination, and life” influence his artistic pursuits as a child, as he represents his village and community through sculpture. Storytelling also contributes to his resilience through hardship later in life, as he settled in the village of Chandigarh with “nothing but stories brought from his village” after the violent India-Pakistan partition of 1947. Even though he had nothing else, those stories sustained him and helped him remember the community that he loved, which he began to “rebuild a tribute” to through the rock garden that he built, as Rosenstock describes on her website.
Storytelling is also a means of continuity through generations for his community, as he describes their impact on him as a child and his desire to share them with children as an adult. After leaving Pakistan, he is still able to pass on those stories through the rock garden, which also serves as a cultural haven for others from that village. By developing the power of story in Chand’s life within this book, Rosenstock teaches children about the significant impact that learning from and cherishing the experiences of others can have on their lives.
* ↑ "School Library Journal". www.slj.com. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
* ↑ "The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art by Barb Rosenstock". www.publishersweekly.com. Invalid date. Retrieved 2024-12-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
* ↑ "The Secret Kingdom by Barb Rosenstock: 9780763674755 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
* ↑ "2019 South Asia Book Awards Announced". Center for South Asia. 2019-05-20. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
* ↑ Aziz-Raina, Seemi (November 2019). "The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art". Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. 97 (2): 115–116, 121 – via ProQuest.
* ↑ Cappiello, Mary Ann (November 2019). "Children's Literature Reviews: 2019 Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction". National Council of Teachers of English. 97 (2): 113–121. doi:10.58680/la201930342.
* ↑ Greenwood, Jamie (2018-12-12). "The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art". Children's Book and Media Review. 39 (4).
* ↑ Dawes, Erika Thulin (January 2019). "The Secret Kingdom: Nek Chand, a Changing India, and a Hidden World of Art". Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. 96 (3): 194 – via ProQuest.