HOME
In an age when art and folklore patrons strive to keep the ancient, lesser known arts alive, the latest book by Nina Sabnani could well evolve as a trendsetter. HOME, her latest work, is targeted at kids. But it is its adaptation from the Kaavad tradition of Rajasthan that makes it unique…
a stand up book unfurling visual narratives… it is essentially a storytelling house. It was released at the London Book Fair in April as part of Vayu Naidu Storytelling Theatre’s Live Book Tour.
- May 2009, The New Indian Express

It's a book that you can open anyway you like. It's a book with a window... HOME is indeed like a house full of stories...
          Sabnani's inspiration for this book comes from the sandy lands of Rajasthan. Based on the Kaavad storytelling tradition where singers and storytellers went from house to house telling stories about the gods or singing about the virtues of their patrons, the book is designed like the Kaavad or portable wooden shrine still used. Most of the stories are religious aimed at making people feel charitable so that they give generously once the tale is told.
          The book isn’t about religion. Instead of pages you have hard covers arranged in columns. There isn’t much writing which makes it an ideal “read” for the very young. The pictures leap out and grab attention. And all with a purpose too. You make your own stories as you go along. Look for new ideas of family…Whoever said families were all about a mother, father and children?...Delve into the different ideas it conveys. Children are encouraged to be storytellers. And the book is full of hints on how you can. While some animals live in large groups some prefer to live alone. Differences are celebrated through vibrant artwork. We might have siblings who are in wheelchair but rare is the book that shows them in a happy family pictures. Well, this book does that and more but that’s not just the reason why it’s so special.
          “You might not understand everything at one go but keep looking. The pictures will stay in your mind and you never know what they might throw up later,” says Sabnani.
- May 2009, The Hindu
 

The Tamarind Tree and The Spider's Web
In The Tamarind Tree and The Spider’s Web, Lata Mani focuses on the simple joys of life.
Lata Mani says that the last thing she expected to do was write for children. “I did not read much as a child. My stories were oral. I imagined telling a story, not writing it…” All that changed when her nephew Gautam asked her to write a story for him. “When you promise a child something, you have to fulfil it. I bravely ventured into new territory, and enjoyed doing it. That’s because I love children’s books. Take A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. Earnest H. Shepard’s line drawings of Winnie are still alive – and the discovery of innocent relationships among species… That is so important at a time when the world of Nature is often shown as uncertain and dangerous,” says Lata…
          So did she follow a plan to capture kids’ attention? “No, but I realised that my nephew and his friends had very little time to do nothing. As a child, I spent a lot of time looking at the clouds, apparently aimlessly. Now everything is so activity and plot driven…movies, television, books. I wanted to give them (children) a chance to make a discovery that was not didactic.”
          That is probably why her books are about slice-of-life moments – four boys’ outing under and atop a tamarind tree, a kid and his father marvelling at a spider’s web – and blissful languor. “A lot can happen when apparently nothing is going on,” she says.
          Strangely for someone who so evocatively describes the act of plucking a ripe tamarind and eating it that you whiz past to your childhood on a magical cloud. Lata has never climbed a tamarind tree or tasted its intense sweet-sour fruit. “I grew up in Bombay,” she laughs. “I now live in Koramangala (Bangalore) and saw some boys climbing a tamarind tree. I discovered nature late in life. But I have learnt the joys of paying attention to it. And, I want kids to enter a world and discover things.”
- February 2009, The Hindu, Metro Plus

Her newest venture is in the realm of children's books, brought on by a promise to her four-year-old nephew. These stories are "not plot-driven," she says. "Children are so driven by activity. My most cherished memories of my childhood are doing nothing, looking at the sky, tracing some shapes in the mud, throwing a ball up and down, lots of time for my mind to breathe and float like a kite in the Bangalore sky. Children these days are so programmed, taken from one activity to the next and I thought 'Is there a way in which one can write stories that built in a sense of ... contemplation in a very simple way that invites children to do nothing?' And yet there is so much richness in allowing your mind to wander and see your relationship with Nature." That is what she has tried to do with The Tamarind Tree and her latest The Spider's Web, about a boy learning the difference between looking and seeing, through his father's camera.
- February 2009, The Hindu, Literary Review

Putul and the Dolphins
This heart-warming story by Mariam Karim-Ahlawat is illustrated on every page with enchanting folk-style illustrations. The bold and colourful pictures bring out the richness of the land, the beauty and playfulness of the dolphins and the glory and the terrors of the mighty river.
- May 21, 2008, Chandamama

Mukand and Riaz
For many adults the poignancy of this story will lie in the fact that it reflects so many real life events...Sabnani’s father, Mukand, came from Karachi to Mumbai in 1947 at the age of 14 years. At age 73, his daughter reports, his memories of childhood were at once fragmented, reflective, joyous and painful. When the partition happened, he was separated from his best friend Riaz Ahmad, forever. In the crafting of this book we feel the sense of a cycle completed... The fact that Mukand is Hindu, and Riaz Muslim, is never spelled out. This is in part the genius of this book. The narrative voice, beginning in third person, refuses to capitulate to adult norms of definition and clarification, staying relentlessly instead within the worldview of the boys...
          In this unfolding of story, Sabnani expresses her respect for young readers and their ability to understand the layered complexities of life and friendship...The final, simple revelation is nothing short of storytelling brilliance...
          Fabric collage renders the characters puppet-like on the page, an appropriate gesture to the manipulation of people by geopolitical events. The combination is a lovingly crafted book, completely accessible to young children. Its specificity of time and place, moreover, don’t prevent it from exemplifying the emotional core of what happens to children in all partitioned lands. Mukand and Riaz should be read by children and adults everywhere.
– Nov 2007  The Book Review

In this wonderful, resonant story of friendship that's set against the backdrop of Partition, a storytelling masterpiece unravels, with illustrations adding a richly textured and visually striking appeal to the simple word narrative. This story emerged from the film Nina made for the Big Small People Project, Israel, based on the memories and mementoes her father
carried with him, when he crossed over. The illustrations that fill out this story, unfold as an applique work tapestry; each detail, each scene...The images that your eyes or fingertips linger on, as the story reaches its conclusion in that funny-warm feeling - they fill your mind with the swirl of shared memories, shared crafts and shared histories, underlining the tragedy in the division of people.
– July 2007  Parenting

The Mountain that Loved a Bird
...a folk tale about friendship that has been around for years, retold yet again – with the same compassion and sensitivity.
–July 2007 The Times of India, New Delhi

My Mother's Sari
Simple text celebrates a child's connection with her mother's sari, a stretch of cloth that is long like a train - and that - fills the air with colour...Full spread illustrations capture the colours and textures of the fabrics and the little girl's wide-eyed playfulness and love of her mother's attire.
– Sep 2006  School Library Journal

Rao makes an interesting artistic choice by using childlike drawings to represent the kids and photographs of the cloths, bringing the fabric designs, colours, and folds, up close. A winsome look at a fresh subject.
– Aug 2006  Booklist

Basava and the Dots of Fire
It...speaks to everyone with the wings of imagination... the author reveals some bright and dark secrets of the forest, which she shows the reader through the eyes of Basava. And Bhakti Phatak has not left any colour unused. The forest is captured in all its glory in the beautiful pictures created by her.
– June 2006, The New Indian Express

Dancing Bees
The characters in the book are having a lot of fun. And you will have no time to take things slow, once you take the plunge into the creepy crawly world of insects...So take a deep breath before you ...jump into it. Once you are done with dancing with the honeybees, bedecked with coloured skirts and garlands, its time to rest. The best place is a hive, cool with natural air conditioning.     
         Assuming all this is not attractive enough, try befuddling the enemy. Scoot with the beetles, jump with the fleas, land upside downside with the houseflies, make owl-like faces...get drunk with the mosquitoes...Go very far, explore all the depths and heights. Because this book will make you do all this and more. All you need is a good dose of curiosity and ..sense of fun. The text also dances with you, so the feel is complete. If you lack energy, the illustrations by Ashok Rajagopalan will give you all you need...get going.
– June 2006, The New Indian Express