THE WORD BIRD
TCA Sharad Raghavan
THE WORD BIRD by By Benita Sen. Edited by Navin Menon. Illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta Children’s Book Trust, 2023, 16 pp., INR 60.00
November 2023, volume 47, No 11

The book won a prize in the category Concept Books in the Competition for Writers of Children’s Books organized by CBT. Sen is the author of three other books published by CBT—A Whale of a Time, Will Busy Bee Find Her Home? and Dress Him Up!
Vibrant and engaging, the story is nonsensical in the way that will appeal to all toddlers. How did the letters in the alphabet become words? With the help of the Word Bird, of course! Ideal for young minds, eager to devour any new information coming their way, the book’s illustrations involve pictures of the different letters. This will help children recognize them over time. The layout of the book is perfect for toddlers, too, with a pleasing image-to-text ratio on each page. That is, there’s lots of colour and imagery to keep children interested, with few words in big text to move the story along.