Vasudha Ambiye enjoys listening to children’s stories and amuses herself by playing with words and tunes. She has translated many books into Marathi for Tulika.
Bhoomi the planet plays games with her friend, Moon, traces star patterns, and watches blazing comets whizz by. It's exciting to live in Space! This is one of five First Look Science books, perfect for a child’s first introduction to basic concepts about the world around because they were conceived visually. The stunning pictures convey the beauty,...
It can fly and do magic. It is a horse and also a pencil. What is it? Bright, endearing illustrations add to the charm of this perfect read-together book with grandparents!
A lonely king and queen hear a voice calling out to them. They look inside their home, in the garden and beyond, searching in vain, while all the time it grows louder... Written like a bedtime story and illustrated with gentle humour, this book leads the reader to discover what 'family' really means without mystifying the fact of adoption. Moreover, it...
Somewhere in the universe, little children in butterfly-shaped time machines eat scrumptious star-rock salad from Galaxy Stellar 5689, and a volcano erupts fruit juice that freezes into ice-cream! Padma is sure of that — because that's what it says in her book. How books give wing to imagination, how flights of fantasy can be as real as the world around…...
Sky monkeys like nothing better than to float for hours. Then one day, a naughty little sky monkey does something most unskymonkeylike and there is a huge hullabaloo up above. What does she do that upsets everybody so much? Whimsical pictures add just the mood to this gently happy story that was inspired by light white clouds in a blue sky.
A thrilling book based on a true story of an encounter with the endangered cat in the Western Ghats of India. Perched on a treetop at a waterhole in a reserve forest in Kerala, the author and his friend, Natarajan, an Irula tribesman, were waiting to sight a tiger. This was when Natarajan told him the story of his first encounter with a black panther in...
Small noses catch small colds. Big noses catch big colds. Gajapati Kulapati the elephant has a big nose and catches a great, big, mighty cold! And what happens when he sneezes – Aaaaachoooo….? With repetitive sounds and words that roll rhythmically through the pages, this bestselling series about the adorable elephant puts the zing back into storytelling...
Pintoo walks home from school one evening, all alone. He is not afraid until the sun begins to set rapidly. Suddenly, he feels himself being lifted up, up, up... by a giant! Now, what? This spin on a common fairytale figure effortlessly captures the spirit of a little boy's vivid imagination and curious nature. Warm watercolour tones bring to life the...
A dusty path runs through a village where people and animals keep walking up and down, up and down. Others, on faster feet and wheels, shout “Out of the way, out of the way.” In a simple lyrical way, the author subverts commonly held views on environment and development by showing simultaneously the growth of a wide-spreading tree and a busy winding road,...
Keshav's favourite game is to hide in a rolled up mat and pretend he is travelling to all the places he has marked in his atlas. And he is delighted when he discovers that his friend, Lobsang, is really from a place that he has marked in his map – Tibet! A charmingly imagined story that explores the reality of exile and the longing for home. Charm and...
Sabri draws wherever she can. On the floor of the hut with rough chalk, or with her one and only pencil on paper from old notebooks. She draws her world – the sun coming up from behind the hills, the chicken, the goats... Then one day in school she sees long colour pencils, and paint that comes out of bottles. After that it isn't enough for her to draw –...
Ju’s mother brings her hand-me-downs from the homes in which she works and Ju welcomes them like new friends. She especially loves the well-used textbooks and the treasures sometimes hidden among their pages: pressed flowers, poems, even a dead butterfly. Then one day Ju discovers a sealed envelope in a maths book, which has a stamp but no address... In...
“There was once a mountain made of bare stone…” It stands cold and alone until one day a small bird appears and changes its life. This well-loved story by American writer Alice McLerran, shared all over the world in many languages, draws from universal truths that go beyond boundaries of language and culture. The illustrations are as lyrical, evoking the...
Naani, Paati, Ajji, Aaji, Daadi, Mutthashi... So many names for Grandma, who is indeed grandmother to all around, with her songs and stories and watchful eye. In just a dozen lines of simple text that lilt with the rhythm of a song, the book captures all the warmth of a grandmother as experienced by a child. This unique bilingual book also has exciting...
Boondi is a little drop of water who rolls and tumbles in the river. One hot day he feels himself being lifted up, up, up into the sky into a big, heavy cloud. What now? This is one of five First Look Science books, perfect for a child’s first introduction to basic concepts about the world around because they were conceived visually. The stunning pictures...
A little girl spills, drops, breaks, trips on things. She is called Clumsy, Slowcoach, Careless... words that scare away all other words. But in her head, words become stories and stories, pictures – and with a box of paints and a brush, she sweeps herself away from the names people call her! Vivid watercolours lift her from her everyday milieu into a...
Renchu prods her grandmother for a story. But her Daadi’s stories are never told straight. She is “sometimes in the story and sometimes out of it”. And as she moves in an out, we see two worlds – one of a time when they were people of the forest, and one of now when they have been forced into cities as ragpickers. The illustrations too flit between the...
The quiet villages of Sundarban are terrorised by a monster with wild eyes, sharp teeth, striped skin and pointed nails — Dokkhin Rai! Until finally, Bon Bibi, protector of the forests and people, asks him a simple question: Why do you do this? The answer to this question is central to the age-old theme of human-animal harmony. Set in the lush and...
When Sun was out people did things, but when Moon appeared all they did was sleep! Moon isn’t happy – she too wants to be noticed. So from where the three seas meet at the tip of India she goes up to the mountains, ruffling up waters to announce her presence. But nothing helps. She then follows the advice of her ocean friends and works at what she is good...
An everyday school story about friends and playing, bullying and sharing, takes a gentle turn. For it is told by Manna, and she has Down’s Syndrome. Award-winning writer Mini Shrinivasan bases her narrative on true events, and speaks in Manna’s voice to take us into her mind. That’s how we move closer to understanding her guileless, trusting responses...
Everybody likes Adil Ali but nobody likes his shoes! They are old and worn, patched and sewn. So his friends decide to gift him a pair of shiny brown shoes for Eid. And then begins the problem – his old shoes won’t leave him! Rich in detail, Niloufer Wadia’s vivid water colour pictures make a bustling market come alive. Along with its sights and smells,...
