In response to the needs of children growing up in a multilingual society, these books provide access to two languages at a time – Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati or Bengali, paired with English. The text is deliberately simple to allow the two languages on the page to be as close as possible to each other, so one can be followed through the other.
The focus here is on bilingualism – ensuring that the two languages translate each other almost literally. Which is why these are simple ‘concept’ books, where the idea is more important than the way the story is told. A great approach to teaching and learning languages.
The popular fables are retold bilingually, with fresh perspectives, unexpected twists and innovatively adapted folk-style illustrations.
Children are encouraged to build vocabulary with the aid of visuals in a storytelling setting. The imaginative pictures and words nudge children to make up their own stories, in either language or in both, and in doing so they use words creatively and remember them easily.
