If you wish to learn about the dark realities of our planet that surface from deep within Fairyland, then it is this book, When Fairyland Lost Its Magic by Bijal Vachharajani and Rajiv Eipe, published by Harper Collins, that you definitely need to read. The readers are kept sitting on the edge of their chairs throughout, for every line is…

Author: Sangeetha Menon “Every child is an artist; the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” – Pablo Picasso This was the overarching feeling I had when I finished reading ‘The Boy Who Built A Secret Garden: Nek Chand’. This book is a part of Duckbill’s ‘The Dreamers’ series, written and illustrated by Lavanya Karthik. This story is…

Author: Vaishali Shroff When we are asked to name heroes from various walks of life, almost all of us may give the same answers because our school textbooks typically depict the same popular examples—whether it’s scientists, freedom fighters or warriors. While it’s important to learn about them, it’s also essential to learn about common people hidden around and amongst us…

Author: Ravina AggarwalPublisher: Young Zubaan “A motley group of school friends investigating a crime and a mysterious disappearance in the Himalayan foothills… if it sounds familiar, you’re not mistaken. But the beauty of Ravina Aggarwal’s Searching for the Songbird lies in how effortlessly it ties together various provocative themes and, quite literally, draws young readers into the music of the Doon Valley.…

Author: Anjana BasuPublisher: Talking Cub “The ever-expanding body of children’s literature featuring tigers gets another excellent addition in Grandfather’s Tiger Tales. The three stories in this anthology bring together familiar and unfamiliar narratives – of a tiger that came to a cricket match, of the fearsome tiger god Dakshin Ray of the Sunderbans, and of a tiger and a man sharing…

Author: Raj Shekhar, Devashish Makhija, Venkat Shyam and Nina SabnaniPublisher: Tulika “The striking musicality and eye-catching visuals of this book in verse by Devashish Makhija, Raj Shekhar, Venkat Shyam and Nina Sabnani lure readers into the world of Adivasis, ‘…the earth’s kuiya-muiya, singing the forest’s haiya-huiya’ where the river mumbles, the fish babble, hills whisper, trees tumble and everything sways to…

By Sangeetha Menon “Kanmani watched her village from the hill. The lands stood dry and bare, broken even. The skies stared back in defence as the sun growled.” These are the opening lines of Maari, a story about a village in Tamil Nadu dealing with severe drought and finding solace through culture. The young protagonist, Kanmani, is worried as she…

By JoAnne Saldanha Have you ever had a perfectly normal, happy day ruined by something that left you so furious that you felt that the only way you could cope was to walk away from the situation, only to encounter something else that leaves you boiling with anger until you explode, spewing hurtful words that you had never meant to…

By Meghaa Gupta The wildings (stray cats) of Nizamuddin are in a frenzy. An unknown cat is invading their minds with its thoughts… Mara is scared, put me down! Where did my mother go? Where are you taking me? Don’t want to leave the drainpipe! You’re frightening Mara… It needs to be silenced, once and for all. Except, this intruder…

By JoAnne Saldanha “LEAVE MY BROTHERS ALONE.” These words stand out on the opening spread of Lady Tarzan! Jamuna takes a Stand, a picture book biography of the indigenous environmental activist Jamuna Tudu, written by Lavanya Karthik, illustrated by Rajiv Eipe and published by Jugnoo Prakashan. The illustrations indicate that the ‘brothers’ being harmed are trees. Jamuna’s fierce cry and…

By Nidhi Gaur Climate change is not fifty years away. It is here, shaping our reality. When we are Home, written by Priyadarshini Gogoi and illustrated by Pankaj Saikia urges readers to take heed of this crisis through the story of two siblings rafting on an overflowing Brahmputra, as they think about their home… fragrant with Aneaido’s til pitha, rhythmically…

By Richa Chadda Life in coastal suburbs runs in a different rhythm to the one inland. Instead of being dictated by a clock or calendar, time follows the routine set by the moods of the sea. What happens when this coastal almanac gets threatened by the clamour for development? When cities grow to swallow every inch of land, getting under…

By Sangeetha Menon How often do we stop to look at our natural environment? Notice the trees on our way to work, a kite gliding through the sky or a moth fluttering outside the window? An ode to natural life within the cityscape, The Living Museum brings alive the drama and mystery within our everyday surroundings. Narrated by the quirky…

Walking the Coast  What do you notice when you go to the seashore? If you are like me, you probably dig around in the sand, collect shells, play in the waves, admire the sunrise or sunset and skirt the tiny crabs scurrying around on the sand. If you are a little more observant, you may notice the nature of the…

Mountain Mania  Although I enjoy reading non-fiction, I may not have voluntarily picked a book on mountains, deeming it too dull. But Up the Mountains of India by Mala Kumar is far from boring. Written in a light and engaging tone, it is an excellent primer on the geography of mountains in India. The book begins with an introduction on how mountains…

A Glorious Ode to the Mahseer  ‘All life on earth needs water to survive and grow.’ ALL life. Opening with the above statement in the foreword of his book, The Tiger of the River, author Adrian Pinder, raises a pertinent question for readers: Who and what is included in the ‘ALL’? The story dwells upon this question through the story of a tiny fish…

Ready for Harvest  With the first rain of the season, everyone is eager to help baba sow seeds in their family’s vegetable garden. After they prepare the soil bed, baba gives Ananya, Veer and mummy, little packets of seeds to sow in their patch of the garden. However, what they are going to grow is a surprise as no one…

Offers an opening to discussions on powerful life lessons using nature’s tender lens and the personal values that drive conservation His ears were too large His nose was too long His shape was quite odd And his colour all wrong He only could trumpet, he could not bellow Yet, the elephant liked being a buffalo. Written in delightful verse by Anushka Ravishankar, often…

An intimate tale of of the human-nature relationship that is often lost in larger conversations around the exploitation of the Earth’s resources. Straddling the dichotomy of Progress versus Nature is the fictitious city of Shajarpur, marked by a sense of joy, peace and calm that’s borne out a healthy ecosystem of flora, fauna and humanity. But it seems Progress, represented by…

Year of the Weeds is a fictionalised account of Korok, a young boy from a Gond village in Odisha, who works as a gardener at a government official’s residence. His mother is dead and all Korok has to remember her by, is a stone placed in the sacred Devi Hill near his village. His father is in jail in Balangir for ‘smuggling’ timber…

Talking to trees is an ancient art that has somehow been lost in the debris of time and the din of development in the last century. Yet, there remain isolated examples of young people who continue to carry this strong sense of communication with living species beyond the human. Melody Kemp dedicates Tree Crime to one such person, Arun Xiong, a young…

Written and illustrated by Labonie Roy, How the Myna ate the Sun is based on the interesting premise of how the Sun, a big, red ball of fire, is the life-giving force behind everyone’s food and is essential to sustain life on our planet. The title of the book immediately catches attention, and invokes curiosity. The story strives to make young readers understand…

Making Friends with Snakes (but from a distance) is an apt name for a children’s book that begins with the premise that snakes can be scary but only because they are often maligned and misunderstood (also see: Snakes in Indian Children’s Literature). The book dispels popular myths about snakes, talks about different types of snakes and their peculiarities and gives us the…

‘Plant more trees’ and ‘save water’ are probably the most common phrases parroted by children, when it comes to environmental conservation. But how do children understand why they should do this, and what they can do? With bite-sized, lyrical text and quirky illustrations, Let’s Plant Trees and Let’s Catch the Rain – written and illustrated by Vinod Lal Heera Eshwar – offer a great…

Yangdol is a little girl born in a remote mountain village in Ladakh, to parents who bring her up with a deep love for the natural world around them. “We are all woven in an invisible bond. This land is home. It belongs to all of us,” her father would say. When some of their livestock are killed by the…

Making sense of the natural world through the eyes of a dog Chitty: A Dog and her Forest Farm by Serow and published by Kalpavriksh is a book about a dog that finds her forever home on the author’s farm, deep in the Western Ghats. For a dog from the city, she carries none of the urban airs, and settles into…

Uma Mani was an average housewife, whose life centered around home and family. On watching a film about coral reefs at a French class, she became fascinated with corals. But Uma didn’t know how to swim, let alone dive. So, she picked up her brushes and began to paint the beautiful underwater world that enchanted her, using pictures that she…

Set in world where a majority of the Gods and their virtues have been beaten by the quest for wealth and power, Ami Majmudar’s The Torchbearers, published by Puffin, seamlessly blends mythology with environmental destruction. Demons abound, and nature has been taken over by forces that look at its bounty as a ‘resource’, with little feeling or care for its emotional richness…

by Adithi Rao and illustrated by Aaryama Somayaji Boy, Bear is part of the Hook Book series published by Duckbill, a children’s imprint under Penguin Random House India. As the title suggests, this book is about a boy, his father, and their dancing bear. The father, a street performer, teaches the bear to dance to earn a living. Years pass as…

This book has been a part of our conversation for a while because my son has fallen in love with the line – ‘Every seed is the promise of a forest… like you are.’ The third book in the Dreamer series – delightfully illustrated short biographies for beginner readers published by Duckbill – The Girl Who Was A Forest is about E.K.…

A boy notices a small sapling on a dusty path that runs through a busy village, and instinctively protects it with stones. People and goods passing by, on ever-faster wheels, shout “Out of the way, Out of the Way” as they make their way around it. They pound and flatten the path into a regular thoroughfare. Over time, the tree…

“… do step outside the confines of your classrooms and houses. You never know what you might find right in your back yard,” Gundappa Sir advises children, in the story Kaadu Paapa by Sujatha Padmanabhan – one of the ten delightful tales featured in the anthology People and Wildlife published by Kalpavriksh True to his words, this book inspires children to do exactly that…

The Little Rainmaker by Roopal Kewalya, published by Puffin, the children’s imprint of Penguin, is situated in a world without rain. The year is 2028, and it hasn’t rained for the past ten years. Anoushqa’s grandfather is old and frail and doesn’t have long to live. He dreams of seeing it rain again before he passes on, and Anoushqa is determined to make…

When woodcutters begin chopping down the trees in their forest and a drought makes it difficult to find food, Gundu and Keeri Humongoose – mongooses with a difference – decide to leave their home and look for a safer place. Travelling with all their possessions, they are enchanted by the lush green of a paddy field, the wide open sky above…

In 1949, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru received a letter from the children of Japan with an almost preposterous request – they had never seen a live elephant and wanted him to send one to them! India was a newly-independent country at the time and Nehru had several pressing matters to attend to, like housing, roads and electricity. Yet,…

Art Is Everywhere – Here, there and in Trash is part of a series of delightful picture books by Pratham based on the premise that art can be found all around us, if we only knew where and how to look. Written by the well-known children’s writers Aparna Kapur and Bijal Vachharajani with artwork by the illustrious Priya Kurian, Adrija Ghosh, Canato Jimo…

Little Bumoni lives across the river from the Kaziranga National Park. She loves eating bananas and her backyard is bursting with banana trees. Every part of this amazing  plant finds its way into her life – the stems  are used to make boats and bowls, the blossoms are cooked into curry and the leaves are turned into biodegradable plates that…

Seeds are plentifully available, so why do farmers need to save them? A very valid question that Bijal Vaccharajani attempts to answer through her book The Seed Savers, published by Pratham. The answer is given right at the start of the book in a conversation between a group of farmers. It is sowing season but they do not have adequate local seeds…

Imagine you are on your way to school one morning and you see a leopard sitting next to you on the bus! Or if you’re at a pav-bhaji stall and right behind you is a leopard waiting for his turn to order! Fantastical as this sounds, it is exactly what happens in Lubaina’s Bandukwala’s Leopard in Mumbai published by Karadi Tales – a hilarious…

Po is a little pangolin who likes to be alone. Other animals find his appearance strange and make fun of scaly body and cone-shaped mouth. However, he ignores them and single-mindedly searches for termites – his favourite food. He knows that his body is built to help him find them. But what happens when Po is attacked by a cheetah?…

Zara lives on a gloomy street with gloomy grey-faced buildings, filled with grey-faced people. She escapes the gloom by hiding alone in a dump yard near her house. However, her solitude is broken when her chatty craft teacher Miss Gappi begins visiting the dump yard. Crafty in more ways than one, her creative upcycling sets Zara off on a delightful…

Four teens – Amni, Tammy, Mithil, and Andrew – wake up to find a fat brown cloud, Bhura Cloudus, looming over Mumbai. As the city starts reeling under the effects of noxious air, ‘groan ups’ seem to be clueless. The denial of the people-in-charge grows thicker than the toxic smog! Minister Motabhai dubs the cloud, Bhura, an anti-national conspiracy against…

In this striking picture book, PS: What’s Up with the Climate written by the acclaimed climate worrier Bijal Vachharajani and published by Pratham, vexed animals exchange postcards brimming with concern about the changes in their habitat and missing friends. The polar bear writes to the penguin about the moody weather and enquires about the missing rat. Grizzly bears can’t figure out their hibernating schedules. The…

Books are considered to be a ‘window to the world’ because they expose children to diverse issues that they may not otherwise be witness to. If you are especially keen to introduce children to diverse, multicultural issues interwoven with environment and development, I Will Save My Land written by Rinchin and published by Tulika is a book that will grow with you and your children. The…

Like most five-year-olds, Mihir loves visiting his grandmother’s house and looks forward to her yummy preparations. However, it is his Ammama’s lunchtime tradition of feeding the birds that fascinates him most of all. Ammama explains that it is a way of sharing and giving respect to other living beings. A few birds and squirrels come by, and as they nibble…

“When the blood in your veins returns to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you. It is you who belong to this land.” ~ a Native American saying Joseph Srinivas, a.k.a Jose, is dead. But afterlife is bewildering and he desperately seeks…

Memories are central to the human experience, but over time, they begin to fade and if they are not preserved, they are forgotten. The Eaglenest Memory Project by Nandini Dias Velho & Anjora Noronha, published by WWF-India is a unique and heart-warming collage of personal narratives, photographs and sketches, preserving the memories of people from the Bugun and Shertukpen communities living around the Eaglenest…

Blending with the brown, slushy mud of a paddy field, lies a fierce-mouthed, hairy-legged juvenile insect named Saahi. Along with her siblings, she chases mosquitoes, larva and tadpoles to eat. As the sun rises, she climbs the stalk of a paddy plant, shaking off the clay that clings to her and waits… till one fine day, her skin splits open…

Sonu opens a tap to fill water in his bucket. But how does water come into our taps? Follow the water as it journeys through the pipes that connect the taps to the lake, river, mountains and finally the sea. Discover what happens at every stage and ponder over how water seeping into the ground joins the sea. Sea in…

A respite from the blistering heat… children sailing paper boats… farmers waiting for rainwater to irrigate their fields… the monsoon means many things to many people. But what happens when ‘lots and lots and lots of rain’ gushes into fields and homes, washing everything away? Using minimal, lyrical text and evocative visuals, Big Rain published by Tulika conveys the complex issue…

Can you taste with your toes or bathe with your nose? How about hearing with your legs and seeing with your ears? Such rib-tickling questions are at the heart of a rather delightful book by Sheela Preuitt & Praba Ram that introduces little readers to the intriguing world of animals. From butterflies and bats to elephants and electric eels, care…

When I first skimmed through Gond artist Subhash Vyam’s Water published by Tara Books, two things caught my attention instantly: the striking illustrations and the story within the story. In this book, he narrates the life in his village and the differences he felt when he moved to the city, with a keen emphasis on his changing relationship with water.…

An adaptation of an European folktale, The Clever Tailor by the acclaimed children’s writer, Srividhya Venkat is the story of Rupa Ram, who stitches new clothes for others, but is unable to afford making any for his family. He is delighted when he is gifted a new ‘saafa’ (turban used by men) at a wedding and wears it all the time,…

It’s easy to believe when someone says that Indians have no pride in their history be it political, economic, social or art. I used to believe it until I realized that the problem lies more with how boringly history is taught in India not only in schools but also in colleges and universities. It’s tragic because there’s no dearth of…