Mannu the monkey has been waiting for this day – when the purply-shurply jamun are pulpy-shulpy ripe. But why isn’t there a single berry on or around the tree?
When she sets her plastic bottle boat to bob from stream to sea, Ammu doesn’t know what danger she has set adrift – that it might end up in the belly of a whale. The light verse that follows the journey of the bottle boat evokes the casual carelessness with which we destroy the natural world, while illustrations underline that horror with a clever spin on...
Bumoni’s big backyard, just outside the Kaziranga National Park, is bursting with banana trees. Then one night a herd of wild elephants crosses the river, discovers the trees, and gorges on them. Bumoni’s family is very upset – how do they keep the elephants away? Bumoni has an idea! But then, what will the elephants eat now? Spare but dramatic pictures...
Gulab’s classmates call her ‘Stinky Gulab’, and it’s not because she smells. Her father is a manual scavenger, made to clean drains and gutters with his bare hands, even today! “Why do you do it?!” asks Gulab angrily. With determination and a little help from science, she takes the first bold step towards change. Addressing a deep-rooted social evil, the...
An Uncle From Far Away shows little Amiya’s class a storybook with beautiful pictures. Now they must build a library, he says. But how? “In Gurez, there are no storybooks. Only lots and lots of snow!” Well, Amiya knows that her Deidi has many stories in her old-old eyes. And over steaming cups of pink noon chai, Deidi begins, Amiya writes, her sister...
One day, when Prime Minister Nehru opened his overstuffed mail bag, out tumbled hundreds of colourfully decorated letters — from children in Japan! “We have never seen a live elephant,” they said. “Could you kindly send us one from India?” This exuberant picture book takes readers across land and sea to tell how Indira, Ambika, Murugan and others became...
Whose colour is GREEN? asked the little boy.“It’s mine!” preened the parrot. “It’s mine! It’s mine!” babbled the bitter gourd.Whose colour is RED, YELLOW, BLUE…? The little boy doesn’t stop, and award-winning illustrator Nancy Raj creates for little readers a wild, whimsical world of colours! As bright hues jump and dance across the pages in this little...
Squiggles and swirls, loops and curls, diamonds and dots... and a small surprise! The little girl watches as her mother traces the cool, moist patterns on her palm. Then comes the waiting. The henna must dry, nothing must touch it – and she can be patient no longer! The art of drawing with henna takes on a little girl’s infectious thrill as decorative...
The very first words Zakir hears from his famous father, Allarakha, are bols — rhythms played out on tablas! From then on, bols sing and dance in his head, on Amma’s cheeks, on the pots and pans in the kitchen… Sandhya Rao follows these beats, stringing together little vignettes from his life. From a childhood around music to the highs of a performer who...
“What will happen if I add up all the numbers in the world?” “Is there a last number?” A toddler captivated by patterns... A little boy filling his slate with numbers, rubbing them out with his elbow and starting again... A teenager solving complex maths problems... A young man matching the best minds in Cambridge... Bringing the story of brilliant...
Ammi weaves the most beautiful sarees, but never gets to wear any of them. Her two little daughters decide to do something about it – break their piggy bank! But is there enough in it to buy Ammi her very own saree? This gentle story goes into the home of a weaver’s family, and lets warmth and affection add colour to their lives. Engaging visual details...
Pouting and shouting – that’s what Anya has been doing ever since her baby brother came along. Because he is a “special child”, her mother says, and needs special care all the time. And Anya is fed up. Then along comes a butterfly – no, a butterbeing! – who takes her up into the clouds, where she sees how a bit of this and a bit of that is mixed together...
The wheels of a cycle, a merry-go-round, a spinning top… Kayu lives in his own quiet world filled only with circles and the patterns they make. One day, he sees a cricket ball spin and curve and jump before it strikes the bat, and he is onto something – a magical bowling spell with two hat-tricks! Inspired by a child with autism, the story makes the...
The gular, or cluster fig, flower is very very beautiful, everyone says. But what does it look like? When does it bloom? There are many stories, and only the really lucky get to see it. As she goes about her day picking waste, Renchu is obsessed with just one thought – will she too see it? The author’s own wonder at discovering the secret of the gular...
Can you taste with your toes? Or see with your ears? Or, at least, smell with your hair? No? Well, there are creatures around you that can! Take a peek into an intriguing world to discover the different ways in which animals do things that are ‘normal’. And look out for the funny bits in the pictures.
All the children in Lila’s class are beginning to lose their teeth and have exciting stories to tell. One buried it in the ground for the mouse to take, another got a shiny coin from the tooth fairy. Lila waits impatiently for her tooth to wiggle… Action-filled pictures bring out her eager wait in a story that every child with jiggly teeth will love!...
Trisha is counting the number of beautiful peacocks on her mother’s saree when one curious peacock jumps off to explore the world. Trisha follows on his tail. What we get is a high-speed chase through a bustling market, onto an umbrella, onto a tree... and find out where else! Detailed pictures create vibrant scenarios where children will have fun...
Rain can be fun. But sometimes, “lots and lots and lots of rain” is frightening — when water comes into homes and washes everything away. Floods and other natural calamities do happen, children do get caught in them, and other children see it all on television. How do they make sense of it? The book talks to children through rhythmic, repetitive text and...
The first chaang, the first elephant, once had big eyes, Which the animals thought looked beautiful and wise. Then, along came a bird, a wagtail, and… Told in verse, this folktale from the Tai Phake people of India’s northeast is gentle and funny. It is one among their many animal stories about why and how something came to be – why the sun comes out when...
A cat has four legs, a dog has four legs, a chair has four legs... Four is special for Ela will be four tomorrow, and with Cat, Dog, Car and Grandma, it’s four times the fun! Bold, colourful illustrations take children into a happy world where they can look for and count many things four.
Mati pesters her grandmother and father for her own plot of land. When she does get it, she works hard. And then she hears that a company wants to make a coal mine in their village – the enormous black pit that will eat up all their lands, like it has in the next village… As always, Rinchin powers her questions through irresistible storytelling. The...
It lets you feel and find, climb and plunge, sail and savour and soar… all from your favourite spot. What can it be? Find out in the visually engaging, whimsical pages of this magical book!
Drums, cymbals, trumpets… It is the festive day of the Ratha Jatra at Puri and Pria wonders why the idols of Jagannatha, Subhadra and Balabhadra are unlike other gods. That’s how Jagannatha looked when he lived deep in the forest, her grandmother tells her. And so starts a story of Nilamadhaba, the secret god of the Sabaras. Central to this is the dynamic...
A boy finds a little seed and plants it. What will grow out of it, he wonders — a tree, a butterfly, a mountain? Manjari Chakravarti’s evocative pictures soar with the child’s imagination, capturing the hope and anticipation and the small dose of reality!
Loading...
