Vidhu Purkayastha, a statistics and operations research post graduate from Delhi University, has kept her fascination for literature alive through translation. In her job in advertising, she would double up as an English-Hindi translator. This stopgap arrangement turned into something she now enjoys doing. Volunteering with children in an orphanage prompted her into translating children’s books. Vidhu lives in Chennai.
A big box, her grandparents' walking sticks, Amma's long red dupatta… Neelu has everything she needs for her big, strong fort. But – oh no – she trips and falls, and the box becomes flat! Whacky pictures take us on a colourful ride into a child's imagination. 2018: Best of Indian Children's Writing: Contemporary
Pranav wants Maya to come to his house. "Why?" Maya wants to know. Bright pictures form a cheery backdrop to a narrative that sees a house through a child's eyes, and makes a good introduction to colours.
Drip, drip, drip! It's raining… What happens when seven animals have to share one small umbrella? Cheery pictures liven up this old folktale about sharing, retold with a twist.
On Monday Mani is a monkey, on Tuesday he's a crocodile, on Wednesday... A days-of-the-week book that gives a real ride to the imagination.
Guddu's mother wants to take a photo of him. But Guddu will not smile! A child's toys come to life in this fun bilingual story with animated illustrations that are picture perfect.
Striking pictures by first time photographers capture everything as vast as the sky and as tiny as a worm with equal delight and fresh perspectives – a bird flying high in the sky, a spider's web, sunlight on a river... The accompanying text echoes the children’s sense of wonder at the patterns and colours. Young readers can stick their own photos at the...
Yak yak yak... the tortoise loves to talk – and learns the hard way that keeping his mouth shut is sometimes very necessary! The clipped narrative style pares the original fable from the Panchatantra down to its essence with dramatic effect in this bilingual retelling. It is offset by decorative, detailed illustrations in the style of kalamkari textiles...
Big Hunter catches poor Deer in a net. Can Deer's friends help him escape? One of the more popular stories from the Panchatantra about friendship and resourcefulness, in a bilingual retelling. The illustrations have the strong lines and vivid colours of Bengal’s patachitra folk paintings used by storytellers as backdrops.
When a herd of elephants creates trouble in the jungle, do the little rabbits run away in fear? No! From Aztec to Chinese, there are many versions of the story about the rabbit in the moon. The illustrations for this bilingual retelling are based on the pithora folk style of central India, which derives from cave art.
