by Seema Richard, Co-founder, Schoolkutti.com Children’s Library
(First Published in the Facebook Group ‘Her Trivandrum’)

When my friends and I started a private library for children at Trivandrum in 2013, our collection included mostly children’s literature by Western authors. Books of Indian origin were mostly limited to Panchatantra, folk tales, Tinkle and Amarchithra Katha series. Later on, I chanced upon some titles from Indian Publishers, which really appealed to me. First of all, our children can connect their every day experiences with the ‘Indianness’ in these stories. There are several books like ‘Talking Of Muskaan’ from Duckbill and ‘A Pair of Twins’ from Karadi Tales which make children think about social injustices and question cultural stereotypes, which I feel is the need of the hour. Also, there are some really good books that make children sensitive and accepting towards differently-abled and special-needs children like ‘Simply Nanju’ from Duckbill and ‘Vibhuti Cat’, and ‘A walk with Thambi’ from Tulika Publishers. Now, we have acquired a decent collection of books from popular Indian publishers including Pratham Books, CBT, Tulika, Dukbill, MsMoochie, Karadi tales and Tara books.

Books, which are written in rhyme and rhythm, with stunning illustrations like ‘Gajapati Kulapati’ from Tulika and ‘Ramu’s ride’ from MsMoochie are a big hit with the little ones who visit our library. For our storytelling and reading sessions, we always include these home-grown books and children keep asking for more.

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