Book Review of Unlocked – Historical Tales in Verse by Sonia Dogra

The fourth post in the series is Book Review of Unlocked – Historical Tales in Verse by Sonia Dogra

Title: Unlocked – Historical Tales in Verse

Author: Sonia Dogra

Genre: Poetry, Non-fiction

Format: E-book

Rating: 5/5

About the Author:

Sonia Dogra worked as a teacher and a reporter for a children’s newspaper before she decided to switch over to freelance proofreading services. Her random ramblings on her blog ‘A Hundred Quills’ turned into serious writing as she began to pen for various online portals. She has been part of an anthology, ‘Poems from 30 Best Poets’, published in 2019 by Literatureslight. She also has a collection of poems titled ‘Life, Women and Everything in Between’ on Juggernaut. Sonia can be caught napping on Twitter @SoniaDogra16 or slightly proactive at A Hundred Quills

About the Book:

When I was in school, I hated History. As it was all about mugging up the historical events, their dates, and years, I found it boring and always wondered why it was even taught to us and what we were going to do with the killer, savior, traitor, and ruler details. Does it sound familiar? I am sure, many of you can relate to me. This book is an attempt by Sonia Dogra to dispel the myth that history is always tedious. The book starts with an opening poem where history speaks to us. It depicts what is in store for us in the book.

Summary:

Unlocked – Historial Tales in Verse is a collection of historical tales served to you in the form of poetry. The book is divided into 2 parts – “The famous and The Infamous” and “Epoch making episodes”. In the first part, Sonia has shared about various famous as well as not so famous personalities from history. I loved how she has picked an event from every personality’s life and described it in a story so creatively. Every story gives you an idea about the personalities life, their attitude and reputation. A few names about whom you would read include Adolf Hitler, Theodore Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro, Genghis Khan, Blaise Pascal and many more. You would read some unknown and unheard stories that will surprise you, for instance, how a beard and a nose created history. And how things could have been different if Hitler’s childhood was different.

The second part of the book is a potpourri of few significant and few unknown events of the past. Some of them include the formation of the Radcliffe line and the birth of Pakistan, Nagasaki bombing etc. My favorite piece in the book is the chapter about the drowning of the Titanic and how it could have been saved. Without being a spoiler, I end my review here. You need to read the book to decode what I am saying.

This well researched book will definitely pique your interest and make you believe that History can be engrossing too. It will leave you wanting for more.

Verdict:

The concept of the book is pretty unique. The title is apt and clearly conveys what the book is all about. I love the book cover as its beautifully designed. You can take a quick quiz to recognize the historical figures on it. The language is simple and easy to understand. Another key point of this book is that every chapter has its epilogue and prologue. It makes its easier for the readers to get a background of the story and understand it better.

The footnotes in every tale guide the readers who have no or little knowledge of the subject about the events and terminology used in the book. I would definitely recommend this book to every child who finds history mundane and to all those adults (like me) who hated this subject and read it just for passing the exams.

The only thing in the book that needs improvement is the font size of the footnotes, I think it could be a little bigger.

Availability:

This book was published as a part of Blogchatter E-book Carnival 2019 and was available for free download for a limited time. As of now, its not available, however, I really hope Sonia uploads it on Amazon so that it can reach a wider audience.

I’m taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter My Friend Alexa