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Everyone loves Gajapati Kulapati, a cheerful young el-ephant who is friendly with everyone. And because of this, people love giving ‘little’ snacks to him! But what happens when a rather young elephant eats ten bunches of bananas, a big bundle of sugarcane, coconuts, jaggery, and rice…all at once? The stomachache which results is as painful as it is inevitable, and it worries the young elephant’s friends, who rush about to try to help him. The book is a happy and cheerful little story with simple words and evocative sounds, but which can be a springboard into discussions about moderation about eating ourselves, or moderation and being careful about feeding animals—be they pets or just our friendly strays on the street.

Lion Goes for a Haircut is another lovely children’s story, this one on why lions don’t get haircuts. Anyone who has ever had cats or been around them, may have noticed that they either studiously avoid looking at mirrors, or if they accidentally do, will hiss and puff themselves up to scare the image away. Well, the hero of this book is a lion who casually strolls into a hair cutting saloon, happily handles a computer as he takes a photo of himself and photoshops various options to see which hairstyle suits him most, then turns towards the mirrors in the saloon, and turns into a pussy!! He is so befuddled by the images that he runs back into the forest.

Not-so-lucky Sumi’s friends think she is so-oo lucky to have a lovely sea-facing room stuffed with beautiful toys, books and games, but Sumi only smiles politely. She doesn’t think so at all because she cares more about yummy food and is always hungry. This is quite a shame considering that her mother is a health food freak and writes cookbooks and hosts TV cookery shows all the time. When she works on a book on South American food, their home is filled with quinoa and llama stews for a month. Or rice dishes for every meal if the book or show is on rice dishes—much to the entire family’s dismay of course.

Nina is an unlikely supergirl, undersized, serious and shy. But she is gifted with an amazing secret superpower—‘She could look into people’s hearts and see if they were nice or nasty.’ Kind and cheerful people give out yellow and silver rays, while angry or evil people are surrounded with red or purple clouds.

When Maya is made a class cup-board monitor, she has to fiercely guard the shiny little key to the class cupboard. For it contains ‘stacks of craft paper in pink and green… baskets of broken crayons… coloured pencils and blue notebooks… and a giant bottle of gum. It was the tallest, biggest, bluest bottle of gum Maya had ever seen.