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

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

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

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