Tulika books - Fifteen, and going strong!

Pic courtesy tulikabooks

I first encountered Tulika books four years ago when A was all of 6 yrs old, and had Hindi and Kannada as 2nd and 3rd languages at school.

I am quite good at Hindi, but it was a little difficult finding good Hindi books where I lived. I was a novice at Kannada, I could barely speak the language, enough to communicate with my househelp, the friendly neighbourhood green grocer and the various autowalas on whom I was dependent to get around the city, not being able to drive. And no, I could not read or write the language. So I had no idea where to begin to find good kannada books suitable for her. The best persons to ask were obviously her language teachers. Both of them refered me to Tulika books.

At that time, I couldn't find much in bookstores. Then I discovered a lady who supplied the books on direct orders. I obtained her catalogue, went through it, and ordered a whole bagful of them.

It was a revelation. Lovely paper, beautiful layouts, just enough text in a large font to tell the story, and plenty of wonderful illustrations to read it from. I got hold of a few basic bilingual books like Line and Circle,  and a few picture books in both Kannada and Hindi like Sameer's House, My Mother's Sari, Dancing on the Walls, Dancing Bees, Pavo and Cavo; Wordbird books like The Why-why Girl, Ekki Dokki, and Eecha Poocha; books from the Under the Banyan series like All Free, Mazzoo Mazzoo and Sweet and Salty.

The books soon became an addiction. I read all the Hindi books aloud to A, again and again, at different stages of her language ability, so that she could soon understand them, and read them herself. A also became my Kannada teacher, and we laboured together through the unfamiliar alphabet, she, having the advantage of all young kids learning a new language, a sponge-like ability to absorb the language, I having the advantage of the familiarity of the sounds, if not of the correct grammar. We understood the Kannada, of course, in the context of a Hindi or English version, and soon made out what the unfamiliar words meant, helped along with dictionaries.

I recommended them to relatives in Mumbai, also thought I'll be able to pick up Marathi versions for A there, but for some reason, they are not so easily found at book stores there. Tulika books, you need to find out why.

It was soon after this, that I came across another wonderful publishing house for books in Indian languages- Pratham books, but this post is not about them. Matter for another post, certainly. This post is about Tulika books, and I'll stick to that. Pratham books deserve a mention in this context, nevertheless.

I soon found many other books by Tulika, loved them, brought them home. Gifted them at birthdays, as return gifts, sent them overseas to blogging friends as a gift, recommended them to countless friends, read them, blogged about them, and participated in blogathons organised by  Tulika books throughout the whole of last year. Won a few books from them too. The last book that I won from them, Aajoba by Taruja Parande, is yet to be reviewed by me. I shall proceed to correct this oversight in this post.



pic courtesy tulikabooks

 So a big THANK YOU, Tulika books. Congratulations on having completed 15 years of publishing this year on the 15th of February. A very happy birthday. We have loved having you around, and we hope to continue to read many more such gems by you. It was also wonderful meeting a few of the team members a few months ago.

And my favourite Tulika? Why, it is My Mother's Sari, written by Sandhya Rao and illustrated by Nina Sabnani, of course! A and I have had some wonderful moments with this book.

And now for our review.

Imagine that a child is given the activity of writing in a scrapbook all that (s)he knows about a favourite relative, with her special memories and feelings about that relative. Imagine that the child is provided with lots of colouring and writing material, and all the photographs that can be found about the person in question. And there is no rush to finish the project, time enough for the child to reflect and marshall all thoughts and feelings.

What would be the result? A collage-y book like Aajoba-my grandfather.

Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

Written and illustrated by Taruja Parande.
Published by Tulika books.
Ages 5+

The book begins with who the writer's grandfather was. After enumerating all that he wasn't, she goes on to say that "He was just very special because he was mine."

And then she goes on to write about all the little, special, memorable things that they went on to do together. Putting a snack together, pottering about in the garden, giving the cat a bath, feeding pigeons and then listening to the sound of their wings as they suddenly flew overhead. The story of her Aajoba and Aaji when they got married, and the stories he would tell at bedtime, the same story over and over again.

The book has plenty of personal photographs, accounts of Aajoba's hobbies, pictures of cards written to the writer in his handwriting, pictures of the bags he made from re-cycled clothes and so much more that gives us a comprehensive picture of the person he was in Taruja's memories.

All the more wonderful from a child's point-of-view, as these are simple, everyday pleasures that mean more to a child than all the big things in the world, the little things that go into weaving a tapestry of memories. A tapestry that is so strong that it can often define who you become, and can be a virtual security blanket for one in the big, bad world.

It is a wonderful book, one that we have loved reading together at home. It has revived many memories of my grandparents, and has led to A seeing her own grandparents in a totally different light. In fact, this is one activity that we have planned for the upcoming vacations- A trip to both sets of her grandparents is on the cards, and we will have a lovely time going through old photographs, and maybe come up with a scrapbook of our own!

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Entering this book for the Reading the World Challenge 2011 over at Papertigers for A under India, non-fiction.