Where little dreamers meet: Celebrating children's books this World Kid Lit Month

Most of our flights of fancy are realised on the magic broomstick of stories And the best cherished ones go back to a time when we were little September was founded as World Kid Lit Month by translators Alexandra Buchler Marcia Lynx Qualey and Lawrence Schimel in 2016 to promote global literature for children and young adults On that cue we explore the emerging possibilities for kids to travel around the globe mdash and the hidden realms of their own country mdash with only a book ticketReaders of tomorrowRoopal Rashomani Kewalya authorscreenwriterThe Indian kidlit scene has grown but sadly the marketing for these books isnrsquot as fierce We must market our books well to reach a wider audience To have more adult readers we have to invest in young readership I think publishers should bring new Indian voices to the fore Her picks I Need to Pee by Neha Singh Ahimsa by Supriya Kelkar Mirror Mirror by Andaleeb WajidLiving in the skin of anotherPayal Kapadia childrenrsquos authorTranslations let us live in the skin of another We impersonate the characters of a story and begin to see the world from their perspective More importantly everything we read expands our empathy Having put that out it should also be noted that good translations are hard to come by as a translator must straddle two languages Certain nuances are quite literally lost in translation I think that we need more independent bookstores public reading rooms and librarians so that a wide pick of books can be curated for young readers Somewhere the Indian publishing industry tends to hold on to a certain vintage of Indianness it isnrsquot necessary We are all Indian We donrsquot need to justify it in the books we writeA cartoon strip from Calvin and Hobbes Pic courtesyTwitterHer picks Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge books by Cornelia Funke Paro Anand Jane De Suza and Anushka Ravishankar Coraline by Neil GaimanA journey of alonenessSanket Pethkar visual artistWhenever I think of the engagement picture books command I am reminded of two masterpieces mdash Kishore Kumarrsquos song Aa chal ke tujhe mein leke chalun and Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne a film by Satyajit Ray They define the benchmark for creating picture books Picture books should be looked upon as dissimilar journeys that a reader embarks on Every child is a perfect recipe for thinking differently they should be left alone and not monitored when exploring worlds conjured in pictures Artists should revisit Indian folk tales and bring them to life through contemporary styles Authorillustrator Madhuri Purandare mdash who writes in Marathi mdash has a unique way of depicting children in urban settings Her work surfaces as a rare viewfinder that captures human behaviour in relation to its surroundingsArt by Pulak Biswas from Tiger on a Tree Pic courtesyTara booksHis picks Catch That Crocodile and Tiger on a Tree by Anushka Ravishankar The Flute by Rachna GilmoreThe spoken wordShilpi Sarkar editor Katha BooksIndia is a plural multicultural land This reflects in our literature too but have we been able to translate and make the range of literary works especially in the 21 main languages we are aware of available in English Or translate a book written in a foreign language into local languages It is important to ask ourselves which language or languages we want a story to be translated to The country already has its own canon of literature but thatrsquos not accessible to all We must include more oral narratives to the pantheon of translated works Therersquos great value in global literature as good stories always transcend time and space in addition to that children should be able to read more Indian folk tales and oral stories Her picks The Little Prince by Antoine de SaintExupeacutery Saradindu Bandopadhyayrsquos collection of ghost stories Pagla Dashu by Sukumar Ray Holde Pakhir Palok by Lila Majumdar