Ranganna

pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

Ranganna
Written by Arthi Anand
Illustrations by Kavita Singh Kale

Ranganna is an endearing baby elephant who lives in a temple town with his mother, near a dhobi ghat. His world is full of myriad colours. The colours of the clothes washed by the dhobi (washer-man) and hung out to dry. The rich colours of the saris worn by the women, and the flowers they carry. The twinkling colours of a rainbow in its full, rain-washed glory.

So when he meets with his friends, Anushka and Aditi, he does not miss the lovely colours that adorns their nails. Of course, he has to have colours on his nails too! What happens next? Does he get paint for his nails? Read the book to find out.

When I first read this book, I was dazzled by the cornucopia of colours that were splashed across the pages. Kavita Singh Kale's illustrations are really richly hued, and hit you with their vividness. Ranganna, too, is exactly what one would imagine a baby elephant would be. The expressions he has on his face are priceless, and children are going to identify immediately with this mischievous and vivacious elephant.

Check out this review and interesting discussions with both the writer and illustrator on Saffrontree.

We've enjoyed many elephant themed book - here is a list I have compiled earlier - and Tulika Books' Ranganna would fit right in. Although my daughter has moved beyond the target age group of this book, she was reminded of an elephant bathing, petting and feeding session that she had enjoyed long ago, at the Dubare Elephant Camp when she was all of four years old.

A fun fact about elephants - they are known to have a limited sensitivity to colour vision - close to what human colour-blind deuteranopes can see. This means that they cannot really see the reds and greens, and would make lousy drivers. If only they could really see colours like Ranganna does. :)

Ranganna will be launched at the Bangalore Literature Festival, on Saturday, 28th of September, in a session with the author from 2-2.30pm. All are invited.


pic courtesy Bookalore and Arthi Anand