Feast of Peas

Jiva loves peas and busily attends to his garden, faithfully watching it grow. His friend, Ruvji, also loves peas. He happens to be around each time Jiva announces his next crop of peas will be ready in the morning. But when Jiva goes to the garden to pick the peas, they are already gone. Ruvji first suggests it might be the rabbits, but the second time the peas go missing, he suggests it’s actually a ghost. As he suggests a ghost, Ebbeler does a wonderful job of making Ruvji appear as a ghost himself, partially hidden behind a scarecrow’s clothing. This clever foreshadowing comes just when readers might be starting to figure out what’s really happening to Jiva’s peas. When the peas are ready a third time, Jiva catches Ruvji stealing them and demands repayment from his friend. When Ruvji repays Jiva with a delicious feast of peas, Jiva shares it with his repentant friend—though Ebbeler cleverly implies on the final page that the story might just repeat itself with the tomatoes and eggplants in Jiva’s garden that are now ripe and ready to eat. Sheth weaves a clever tale that’s just predictable enough to be fun. Ebbeler shines most in depicting Jiva the scarecrow chasing his friend Ruvji the ghost.