ON A cold winter evening, with my five-year-old tucked in bed, I start reading to her Stephen Alter’s latest novella, The Secret Sanctuary.

The dedication says it all: “Dedicated to every student who has gazed through a window and wished that she or he could escape outdoors instead of being trapped inside a classroom.” It speaks volumes to the child in all of us.

From the very first chapter, the reader is transported into a magical world of adventure. Easy, free-flowing prose and an unfolding quest make the story captivating. You want to finish the book in just one sitting from cover to cover. Writing from personal experience and observation, the author brings alive the flora and fauna of these first foothills of the Himalaya where he grew up.

The book’s 15 chapters are spread over 120 pages. The adventure begins with Manohar, Pradeep and Kamla, who walk to and from school every day, through the forest below Flag Hill, where this story begins. Doctor Pashupatinath Linnaeus Mukherjee, the naturalist, takes the readers along with the trio into a charmed world where humans share in peace with others, this corner of our blue planet.

Dr Mukherjee, a sort of mad-hatter, gives us a deep insight into the parallel world we share with, “animals and birds and reptiles and plants, insects and flowers, trees and worms, anything that moved or grew or changed with the seasons.”

Entertaining as well as educative, the characters teache us English and Latin names of flora and fauna which habitat Mussoorie and its surrounding hillocks. While the adventure progresses, the prose too moves effortlessly educating the reader.

The author speaks for all of us through Dr Mukherjee, when he says, “Until then I’d spent my whole life in the city. I thought that flowers only grew in pots. But when I saw the jungle for the first time, it was like opening a book that never ends, a story that keeps on going forever, chapter after chapter. Though we didn’t see a tiger, I saw wild elephants and all kinds of deer, even Rhoniceros unicornus. That was the first scientific name I learned.”

Over a dozen well-researched black and white illustrations by Prabha Mallya add to the beauty of the book.

This book is a must-read for all age groups, since it awakens the child in us all. That insatiable urge to escape the tedious monotony of our daily lives and live a life of adventure in the wild, even if it were just for a few hours. That’s what this novella is all about and that is exactly what makes it special.