—

It’s a very eye catching cover—a purple and gold tiger with a huge lolling, shocking pink tongue springing out of a forest. Then the blurb on the back cover tells you it is a story set in the mangroves of the Sundarbans and you know you are in for a treat.

Karthika Nair has set the story of her picture book in a very unusual location—the ‘beautiful forest’ of the Sundarbans that stretches across West Bengal and Bangladesh and is the largest river delta and mangrove in the world. It is 26,000 kilometres in area and now a World Heritage Site and part of Project Tiger. It is a pitiless land of snakes, crocodiles and ferocious wild cats and the most ferocious of all is the Royal Bengal Tigers that are often man eaters in this region.