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Five bookworms and other stories

On International Children’s Book Day, five friendly book-huggers who also write for children tell Sohini Das Gupta about childhood summers radiant with Enid Blyton books, comics and beautifully illustrated Russian literature

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Shabnam Minwalla

First of the book bugs

I remember this very battered copy of Peter Pan by JM Barrie, which I’d read out to my brother when he was two and I was six. When I was even younger, I had a Cinderella board book. It was the kind featuring photographs of dressed up dolls, instead of illustrations. In my mind, Cinderella has blue marble eyes, yellow woollen hair and wears big plastic pearls.

Magical memories

Every few months, I’d open my piggy bank and raid a tiny book shop on Colaba Causeway (Mumbai) to expand my proud collection of birthday books, mostly Enid Blytons. To me, living in a house named honeysuckle cottage and collecting berries in a meadow was the magical life. Years later, when I was in Cambridge on a fellowship, I made perfect that picture, over clotted cream, scones and treacle tarts.

A scribbler’s story

I was a journalist for ten years. After 3 daughters and a freelance stint, I decided it was time to finally write a murder mystery set in Mumbai. Instead, what popped out was an adventure book for children!That’s what i do, still.
The nerdy-mom’s shelf
I recommend My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, which my daughters are now reading. It’s unmatched in its gentle humour and ability to inject wonder into the mundane world.

Richa Jha

First of the book bugs

When I was just four, my parents gifted me llustrated copies of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. I spent countless hours flipping through the pages. I still do sometimes.

Magical memories

A neighbourhood bookshop in Dhanbad and my annual trip to the Calcutta book fair fed my fondness for Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Agatha Christie, Alistaire Maclean and Russian illustrated story books. Because my father was a doctor, I took to Robin Cook at a very young age.

A scribbler’s story

Sixteen years ago, I picked up some picture books at the Strand (Mumbai) sale for my then 4- month-old son, and fell for them, just like I had as a girl. The obsession grew and there came a point, about six years ago, when I could no longer ignore the mad itch to start writing my own picture books! I’ll let mommyhood take all the credit for my work.

Of big little lessons

A good picture book starts along the basic premise that the children reading that book have a mind sharper, more observant and more sensitive than what most adults would credit them with having. It will leave them moved, slightly altered from before, but not always in an earth-shattering way.

Roopa Pai

First of the book bugs

One of the first books I remember reading was called World Fairy Tales. I only picked it up because it was my elder sister’s favourite --she read aloud to me from it until I could read it myself. ​

Magical memories

I used to get constantly pulled up for reading at the dining table or while walking down the pavement on my way home from school. In the 70-s, I had access to beautifully illustrated Russian books. I remember a lovely little store in Bangalore called Mecca Stores that allowed you to swap the books you’d finished reading. That and the neighbourhood libraries were where I developed my love for Indrajal Comics, Amar Chitra Katha, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and the hands-down winner--Enid Blyton books.

A scribbler’s story

I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a writer. The inspiration to be a children’s writer came from an iconic 80-s magazine called Target, that showcased really good writing. I picked scienfic themes because I found it sad that so many children are intimidated by science, despite being so inherently curious My books try to convey that Science and Humanities are not that different.

Cue: Cut to the chase

The best children’s books cut to the chase quickly. Children are neither great fans of the lyrical lines nor have the patience for a five page atmospheric build-up. Just throw in some action, laughter, food and sparkling dialogue and you've got a winner.

Ranjit Lal

First of the book bugs

When I was five, I read because that’s what grown-ups did! Soon, I began to enjoy it for my own sake.

Magical memories

Before our summer holidays, my elder sister made‘reading lists’, which included all the Charles Dickens classics. I read The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Prisoner of Zenda, to name a few. There was no question of a bed-time curfew: by the end of the day, we had read as much as we wanted to. Most of my favourite book recommendations still come from my sister.

A scribbler’s story 

I started off writing for adults (‘adults who are children’, really) and soon realized that I enjoyed writing purely for children much more. Children feel strongly about things that we adults often brush aside--injustice, prejudices or even matters of love. Thus my books came to be. But there are still so many themes that remain to be explored, when it comes to children.

Be wise, don’t moralise

Kids hate morals when they blaze out in the story in all caps! It is wise for the author to just lay bare a situation and let the child decide what the best course of action could be.

Shalini Srinivasan

First of the book bugs

An early favourite was one of the  Bedtime Story books by Enid Blyton. I remember a great wave of satisfaction washing over me when I finished it.

Magical memories

I was a book monster. I read I perpetually and on finishing my own stock, dug into my parent’s, who fed me a constant supply. Asterix, Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit and books by Joan Aiken, Roald Dahl and Edward Lear were favourites that I re-read as an adult. Indian, Norse and Greek mythology featured on my staple list too. Most of these books had a quality that I now try to bring into my writing--humour, deeply peculiar people, and the sense that the world is a vast and inexpressibly strange place, about which human beings really don’t know very much.

A scribbler’s story 

Writing children’s books is sort of my default option while writing. I love that in children’s book, everything can talk -- animals, plants, furniture! Children’s fantasy gives you a lot of room to talk about anything at all. It’s very liberating.

Secrets from long-ago land

I can recite significant portions of Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery) even though I haven’t read it in decades!

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