Peter Linenthal’s children’s book Jaya’s Golden Necklace draws on the culture of the ancient Kushan Empire in a story of a determined little girl who relies on a trio of diverse deities to help her through a demanding day.

The story opens with Jaya’s mother, who’s been called upon to bake her famous apricot cake for King Kanishka’s birthday. She gives the unhappy Jaya a necklace with three golden coins, each featuring an image of a different deity. “My own mama gave this golden necklace to me, and now I am giving it to you,” Mama tells Jaya. “It will help you when I’m not here.”

The power of the necklace is only revealed when Jaya’s father asks her to help him with a challenging task, also in honor of the king’s birthday: to carve a statue of the Buddha. Along the way, Jaya gets help from Hercules, Shiva, and Inanna—the three figures featured on the necklace’s coins.

The story of a determined little girl who finds a way to overcome the obstacles before her will appeal to fans of Dora the Explorer, Amelia Bedelia, and Anne of Green Gables. Linenthal’s rich, vivid illustrations evoke the look and feel of ancient Asia. Older readers and parents will appreciate the care that Linenthal takes to be historically and culturally accurate while telling this charming story about not giving up.

He came up with “a story that was compelling enough to pull you forward, which is always my dilemma with the ancient stuff,” he says. “But I think the idea that Jaya and her dad had to come up with this sculpture under pressure to get it to the king, but encounter these difficulties along the way, would be interesting for children and reflect the history at the same time.”

Linenthal is the author/illustrator of more than a dozen children’s books, including the prizewinning Look, Look! Board-book series. He’s taught art to children for more than 30 years in San Francisco, where he still lives. For Jaya’s Golden Necklace, he says that he was inspired by his personal collection of Central Asian antiquities, and he’s long been fascinated with the Kushan Empire.

The empire, which lasted from the year 30 to the year 375, included parts of present-day Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan and was a central point on the Silk Road between China and Rome. The Kushans’ rulers, which included King Kanishka I, also known as Kanishka the Great, were immortalized on coins, as were deities that they drew from the Greco-Roman, Iranian, and Indian pantheons, which is why Inanna, the Mesopotamian goddess of wisdom; the Roman hero Hercules; and Shiva, the Hindu god of creation and destruction, all play roles in Jaya’s story.

The girl’s first encounter is with Shiva, whom she invokes when she makes a wish:

The yard was full of gods and goddesses that Papa had carved, but no one had ever carved a statue of the Buddha before.

“What does the peaceful one look like?” wondered Papa.

“I wish I knew!” said Jaya.

Varoosh!

Suddenly one of the coins on Jaya’s necklace started to sparkle in the sunlight.

From out of the coin leapt Shiva, lord of creation, dancing like a silk scarf in the wind.

“You know what to do!”

“Me?”

“You’ve watched your father carve all your life, little Jaya. Just start and your ideas of peace will flow!”

Jaya’s Golden Necklace, according to Kirkus’ review, includes “vibrantly colored illustrations [that] bring the multicultural world of the Silk Road to life.” Linenthal says he took time to determine the right palette for his illustrations. “I wanted it to reflect the vibrant colors you find in India, yellows and saffron,” he says. “It’s easy to find inspiration in Indian art.”

And even though it’s a fictional story, the author wanted it to be as historically accurate as possible. Jaya’s mother is meant to be Indian and her father Greek, which reflects the mix of cultures in the Kushan Empire. And King Kanishka in the story is based on the Kushan emperor of the same name, who’s widely credited with encouraging and helping to spread Buddhism and ordering the creation of some important physical images of the Buddha in coinage and art.

“There was just a wealth of material to draw from to make it faithful to the elements you would find in architecture, dress, and all the decorative motifs and images from the Kushan Empire,” Linenthal says.

He notes that Wanda Gág, who wrote and illustrated the classic children’s picture book Millions of Cats,and Margaret Wise Brown, the famed author and illustrator of the beloved bedtime story Goodnight Moon, were important inspirations to him and his own work.

Although he thinks Jaya’s Golden Necklace will also appeal to children of all ages, as those books do, he says that its primary audience is probably kids between 4 and 12 years old. He was considering that audience in how he approached the story and with some of the extra features he included, such as a few historical facts about the Kushan Empire. They appear on a page after Jaya’s tale ends, and he hopes that they’ll spark curiosity in some future historians. He even included a recipe for Mama’s apricot cake, which he notes that he and his editor particularly enjoyed researching.

Linenthal says he also hopes that the young readers of Jaya’s Golden Necklace will connect with the young protagonist who becomes the heroine of the story even if they’re not familiar with the story’s cultural references: “I grew up thinking of the East and West, Europe and Asia, as completely different,” he says. “Learning about the Kushan Empire showed me that East and West share historic connections and are not as separate as we’ve come to believe.”

Kim Lyons is a Western Pennsylvania–based writer and editor with a soft spot for a great story.