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Sabu loves the sea, and it feels like the sea loves him too. But one day his world is turned upside down by a raging cyclone. His family and the whole fishing village is evacuated to shelters. After it is over, Sabu has to get over his fear and mistrust of the sea, and learn to live with it, and even love it again. The evocative illustrations take us on this journey with him, to the tentative reconciliation in the end.
A picturebook for all ages, it contains a set of descriptive markers on each page, building up as a set of riddles or clues towards the reveal of the identity of the unknown entity being introduced as “language”. The descriptive markers highlight the centrality of language in our cultural experience over history and the role communication has played in this time. Illustrations brilliantly capture these aspects as well in muted, pastel shades, perhaps hinting at universality of language experience including interesting ways for signlanguage and braille.
Stories-within-stories, all emerging from a tree who knows about the struggles of displacement and its emotional and ecological impact on people. Sabri loves to draw but paints are expensive, and Shankar tells stories to get through tough situations. The children ask questions and the tree tells fables which critique power and progress. Sabri and her pack of friends will take you through a range of emotions from anger and despair to humour.
Rogues and Rajas – Dark Tales from Tumultuous Times
A refreshing change from the tales of the glorious past, this one is about the evil, cruelty, intrigue, and betrayals that are as much a part of our history as the bravery and sacrifice and noble acts. A sort of fictionalised history, the stories are based on historical characters and events, but written like stories of adventure and make for interesting reading. A timely reminder that not everything in the past was good, and that human nature has many dark corners too.
Bold charcoal illustrations by Priya Sebastion introduce us to mothers of all kinds — as human and quirky as any of us. Perhaps you’ll spot your mother among the pages or you might use words and pictures to paint her your way. A book about mothers without their children! Mothers will like to see themselves in the book and children will wonder how they see their mothers.
A brilliantly designed book, on the theme of “wanting to be” something. Children have a wonderful time flipping through it, engaging in the play of words and the shapes, size, and colours of alphabets associated with the words symbolising their meaning in the design. Each page in itself is a masterpiece in wordplay and the layout. The book is a wonderful space for wordplay and engagement for older children, a lively companion for parents and teachers and a lesson in good design principles for children’s book authors, illustrators, designers, and publishers.
A powerful and complex poem that is brilliantly illustrated, this book stands as a strong critique of contemporary society. It communicates this through a series of complex illustrations, mostly abstract and in collage-form, and in pull-out ‘spread’ sheets seen through transluscent verses of the poem, as though the words reflect the deeper structures and events in society. Provocative and prospective in equal measure, this work has the quality of a musuem art show captured in a book, with minimal curatorial text.
A Song From Where I Live – Pin Code 678574
Lyrically written and equally lyrically illustrated. Here is a picture book for older children – a poetic celebration of the writer’s home in Kerala. Sparingly written in short couplets, with abstract illustrations which invite interpretation, this a book which readers can savour and go back to. What does home mean to you?
