by Gita Varadarajan “To be literate is not to be free, it is to be present and active in the struggle for reclaiming one’s voice, history, and future.” (Friere and Macedo, 1987) In the year 2011-12, I had the privilege of working with 5th graders at P.S.11 in Chelsea NYC. I walked past this mural … Continue reading #INDIAKIDLIT – Inviting Children into the World of Books
#INDIAKIDLIT – The Invisible Visibles – Sikh Representation in Children’s Literature
by Rasil Kaur Ahuja Sikhs are ostensibly the most visible minority in the world, yet we remain near invisible in the books children read. Famous Sikh Gurus (Guru Nanak, Guru Arjan, Guru Har Gobind, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh) - Amar Chitra Katha comics - edited by Anant Pai Growing up in the India … Continue reading #INDIAKIDLIT – The Invisible Visibles – Sikh Representation in Children’s Literature
#INDIAKIDLIT – Stories as a Brilliant Disguise
by Devashish Makhija When Ali Became Bajrangbali - by Devashish Makhija, illustrated. by Priya Kuriyan (Tulika Books, 2011) - available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, and Gujarati In ‘When Ali Became Bajrangbali’, a monkey is portrayed as being a god on the one hand while on the other hand, a monkey … Continue reading #INDIAKIDLIT – Stories as a Brilliant Disguise
#INDIAKIDLIT – Why why? And other questions for Indian children’s books
by Shalini Srinivasan Unlike a lot of my own readers, my reading journey was – and continues to be – fairly uneven. I read Are You My Mother? at the recommended age (4ish, if you’re wondering) and met Enid Blyton and then Moby Dick (much abridged and with false editorializing from my father) and proceeded … Continue reading #INDIAKIDLIT – Why why? And other questions for Indian children’s books
#INDIAKIDLIT – Why I retell old Indian stories for the young
by Roopa Pai The Vedas and Upanishads for Children - by Roopa Pai (2019) / The Gita for Children - by Roopa Pai (2015) Some stories stand the test of time. The core themes of Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, are recognizable tropes in modern film and theatre across the world, and his words have passed … Continue reading #INDIAKIDLIT – Why I retell old Indian stories for the young
#WORLDKIDLITMONTH – September 2022 – Slices of Indian Children’s Literature Served Up Over Time – #INDIAKIDLIT
by Karthika Gopalakrishnan India is a country of multitudes, made up of over a billion lives that intersect across lines of class, culture, language, and tradition, to coalesce into a thriving, proud, and fascinatingly curious whole. Composed of individual states, some of which are more populous than Brazil while others have roughly the same population … Continue reading #WORLDKIDLITMONTH – September 2022 – Slices of Indian Children’s Literature Served Up Over Time – #INDIAKIDLIT