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For many years my children looked after stray dogs in the colony, feeding them when pregnant or lactating, taking injured ones to the vet, getting a couple ligated and rabies-shot. Then we moved, and a family of stray cats adopted us, including eventually a three day old, still blind, tabby whose mother was killed by dogs, and who survived because of my daughter’s sheer persistence. Naturally, our perspective became more feline than canine.

Anand is a fastidious, book-ish 11 yearold who likes learning new words from his thesaurus and prefers living his life in an ordered and disciplined fashion—just the wrong sort of child to be saddled with bohemian parents who live life casually and think nothing of going on impromptu trips to weird places! His parents are at it again, and this time they have dragged him along to visit a friend who lives in the crumbling old mansion of his dacoit ancestors. The house comes replete with hidden passages, overgrown grounds and a tantalizing story of hidden treasure!

An illustrated book is often a child’s first introduction to the magical world of reading. Children have short attention spans and a limited vocabulary, thus the pictures represent a relatively familiar concrete experience with which they can identify.

Once upon a time Sonabai built a house, far, far away in the remote Puhphutara village of Madhya Pradesh’s Sarguja district. She lived with her husband, Holi Ram and their young son, Babu (Daroga Ram). Holi Ram spent most of the day working in the paddy fields; no one came to visit Sonabai nor did she go out. She was virtually alone, until one day, near the well, she saw some ‘squishy clay’.

Did you know that a Dodo tastes absolutely horrible? I didn’t, until I read this hilarious, racy, a-thrill-a-minute careening adventure of three agents of the Animal Intelligence Agency. The eye catching cover by Priya Kuriyan shows you an impossibly cute Dodo, three agents in the line of fire against telltale skylines, along with a firm declaration: SAVE THE ANIMALS. SAVE THE WORLD!

Pterodactyl’s Egg by Annie Besant is a book about a Pterodactyl egg which Sam discovers on the playground and takes home. Little does he expect it to hatch, and what follows is not for the faint hearted!