Her books today are read in a spirit of enormous nostalgia that talk of the values of friendship, fairness and freedom in a time that has become more self-centred.

The tale, only 244 words long, has sold over 50 million copies and is a children’s classic now. Almost every adult recalls reading it multiple times. The book is not just a tale of a hungry caterpillar, it is an attempt to gently build a cocoon of literacy around children before they begin kindergarten.

An English writer, playwright and performer, Julia Donaldson’s career in writing books for children came about through sheer happenstance. While studying Drama and French at the University, she started busking in the street and singing in folk clubs with her soon-to-be husband Malcolm, mainly for an adult audience. However, she found that there was more […]

Considering Nandana Sen’s lineage, merely saying that she comes from an illustrious family somewhat feels like an understatement. Sen is the daughter of Nobel Laureate and Bharat Ratna economist Amartya Sen and Padma Shri winner Nabanita Dev Sen, who is one of the most well-known authors in the contemporary Bengali literature. Her sister Antara Dev […]

In December 2010,  when Holi was around the corner, Bhakti Mathur was looking for a good book to explain the festival to her older son who was two-year-old then. She couldn’t find anything that she liked and ended up writing one herself. She decided to turn it into a self-published series called Amma Tell Me. […]