Riddle of the Ridley

...an album of the celebration of turtle birth and life. Some truly amazing photos make this book a collector's edition. Since most of the turtle's journey is told through pictures even the very young can enjoy the book.
– May 2007, The Hindu

Birds From My Window

"Ranjit Lal takes bird-watching to vertiginous heights as he narrates with delicious voyeurism the near-human quirks, mating strategies and social skills of his avian pals, in particular those who share with us our brick and mortar living and dead spaces (some also nest in cemeteries). Birds From My Window is an all-you-wanted-to-know-about-birds-but-didn't-know-whom-to-ask kind of handbook and guide, replete with interesting details so often missing in academic ornithological tomes. What's more. it's written in an easy non-jargon style and with the passion of a dedicated zookeeper."
– November 2002, Outlook

"Once again, Ranjit Lal has produced a gem of a book. It is a bird-book with a difference, one that literally entices you to take a closer look at these interesting creatures with whom we share our
city. And it does so with wry and mischievous humour ...Lal combines personal observation, bird biology and storytelling skills to introduce the reader to a host of charming bird characters ... which immediately endear themselves to the reader ... With his deft descriptions that snugly encapsulate the entire character of a bird, Lal's book makes the apparently abstruse world of birds immediately accessible to the layperson and without losing our one bit on the 'learning part'.
     Birds From My Window will make for interesting reading for both children and adults...A delightful and entertaining read. One is left asking for more!"
– November 2002, The Book Review

"Not many consider bird-watching a serious pastime, especially when it is done from the window of
a city home. But in his new book, Birds From My Window, Ranjit Lal proves how a little patience
and interest can introduce one to the delightful world of these winged creatures ... an almost perfect chronicle of the many birds found, but not often seen, in cities...Starting each chapter with witty, fascinating and sometimes downright hilariously silly limericks, the author illustrates each bird in its essence ... A book that can be easily classified as a beginner's guide to city-bird watching, Birds From My Window has the distinction of being as easy a read as it is informative."
– November 2002, The Hindu

A Tree in my Village

Going through the pictures in A Tree in my Village is not at all leafing idly as through a magazine, rather it is gaining entry into a conception of the world. Is it a book for children? Yes, if you consider children the most exacting readers for whom a book is not just another book, but a condensed world held close to the heart and which surges up in the memory at various stages of life. Fortunate are those who are constantly imprinting in their mind the butterflies flying from one hyacinth to another rather than the world offering a multitude of possibilities. Each one can find his insect, his bird, his monkey, his snake, his fish, in different sizes seen from different angles, making each page a feast for the eyes (un delice pour les yeux, as we say in French).
– Eric Auzoux (Director, Alliance Francaise, Chennai)

The Arjuna tree in the author's village is an ordinary tree. But the author gives it personality. He gives it life. With illustrations and a text that is as graphic. His observations about something as passe as a tree are so striking that you can't but agree with him that a tree is like a 'high-rise building', with its many classes of birds, bees and reptiles ... The language is unpretentious and makes for fast reading, mainly because of the pictures that will keep making you turn the pages. Written and illustrated by the author himself, the book makes for good 'visual' reading.
– India Today

It is heartening to see a new entrant – Tulika Publishers (1996) – setting high goals and matching them with taste and imagination. Its fiction and non-fiction for different age groups are well laid out, the illustrations highlight the content, the colours vivid without a synthetic gaudiness.
    A Tree in my Village, released by Tulika this year, is a work of a special kind ... Sen's words can turn into brush strokes ... text and pictures often have an auditory component. Nature is not forms and colours alone, it orchestrates harmonies ... No doubt the illustrations make the book. What a variety in perspective, framing, focus and angle of vision. There is nothing static here, each visual has its particular shade of meaning. The viewer is infected by their energy. There is a rich, detailed narrative in the images which is out of reach for the pen.
– August 1998, The Hindu

Paritosh Sen's A Tree in my Village, glows on account of the author-artist's exuberant pen-and-ink sketches, washed with water colour. He tells us about the variety of bird, animal and insect (and spirit!) life in and around a giant Arjuna tree in his village in Bangaldesh ...There are some intimidating words and references (for example, 'de rigueur', Mark Rothko), but very sensibly, the publishers have not 'simplified' these, but explained what they mean. Too often, children's writers and publishers think that kids have a fixed vocabulary of about twenty-five words and are not in the least interested in finding out about things.
     Both content and production wise, these two books (A Tree in my Village and Suresh and the Sea) give one a lot to be optimistic about with regard to the future of children's literature in the country. Let's hope there's plenty more of such stuff in the pipeline.
– February-March 1999, Indian Review of Books