Top 10 books from Tulika Books (Part 1)

A few days ago, I sat down in front of our overflowing bookshelves to compile a list of my top 10 books from one of my favourite publishing houses. It took me well under ten minutes to realise that I am going to have to do multiple sets of top 10’s to cover the list. Consider this post the 1st part. I will be focusing on the 0-3 age group in this post and move up reading levels over the next few posts.

My association with Tulika goes back to much before I even thought I would grow up to be legitimate adult, leave alone have a child. I have copies of books that are well over a decade old, not to forget the countless copies I have bought for nieces and nephews.

Tulika publishes inclusive books for children and younger teens featuring brown skinned protagonists and their realities. Their portfolio also includes a lot of bi-lingual books and all their books are available in a huge selection of Indian languages.

Let us get on with the list and start from age 0 where your child’s (and your) reading journey begins.

1)Ammachi’s Glasses by Priya Kuriyan

This is a hilarious wordless picture book that is about a grand mother who and her misplaced glasses. Follow Ammachi as she cooks chappals in a pot and blithely proceeds to eat spiders.

2) Flutterfly by Nivedita Subramaniam

Flutterfly is another wordless picture book and this one is all in black and white with a smattering of coloured butterflies. While this does not have a structured storyline like the previous wordless picture book, it is a wonderful way for children to make up their own the versions of story. Younger toddlers and infants can engage with the illustrations while older toddlers can spend hours re-telling the story. Image a book that can be a different book every time you read it!

3) Gajapati Kulapati by Ashok Rajagopalan

This one is a cutie even by elephant standards. Imagine one of the most adorable elephants you have ever seen and what happens when he gets wet and catches a cold! This book is a classic and on pretty much everybody’s list of favourites for a reason. Aimed at the 2+ age group, I am yet to meet a toddler who doesn’t love this book.

4) Purple Jojo by Sameera Zia Qureshi Illustrated by Jaikar Marur

I have lost count of the number of copies of Purple Jojo I have bought to gift over the years. This is a bilingual book about a puppy who falls asleep under a tree. When he wakes up, he has big purple patches oh him! How do you think Jojo got the purple stains?  This is another excellent book for toddlers.

5) Mallipoo, Where are You? by Radhika Chada illustrated by Priya kuriyan

Meet Mallipoosundari , possibly the cutest piglet you will every see! Mallipoo’s Amma pig goes out asking Anna and Akka elephant to keep an eye on her babies. The elephants get distracted and the baby pigs go missing! Anna, Akka and their little brother Baby Bahadur try to find the piglets. The Baby Bahadur series features some of the sweetest animals we have on our bookshelf. There is Bahadur the elephant, Snoring Shanmugam the lion, Colour Colour Kamini the chameleon and many others. This book is for toddlers as well.

6) Sunu – Sunu Snail by Sandhya Rao illustrated by Ashok Rajagopalan

The story of the storm with all its sights and sounds and nosies through the eyes of a little snail who rushes home to tell his mother all about it. This is another one of those books for toddlers that finds its way into almost every gift hamper or bag I put together. I remember buying my (now shared with the toddler) copy when I was in college!

7) Maharani the Cow by Christy Shop Sudhir illustrated by Nancy raj

She is the Gumbie cat of cows and sits in the middle of busy streets holding up the traffic for hours on end. Maharani is a newer title from Tulika that has won over pretty much every family I know who has a copy of it.

8) Jalebi Curls by Nivedita Subramaniam illustrated by Kavita Singh Kale

A Raja who dreams of jalebis in his sleep is a chap after my own heart. Curl up with the kids and read all about the Raja’s bizarre dream. Don’t forget to keep a plate of jalebis handy.

9) Eecha Poocha Retold by Kala Sashikumar , illustrated by Ashok Rajagopalan and translated by Sandhya Rao

A retelling of a Malayalam folk tale about a greedy cat and a fly. Hungry little poocha drinks up all the soup that he and eecha the fly make and he swells up like a balloon. What do you think happens after?

10) The Pleasant Rakshasa by Sowmya Rajendran illustrated by Nivedita Subramaniam

Karimuga is a friendly  rakshasa who decides to share his beauty with all his fellow rakshasas who are unhappy and jealous of how nice he looks.  Have a conversation with your toddler about happiness, sharing and what is truly beautiful and spend hours to pictures of your own versions of the rakshasas.

This is by no means a complete list and I have had to leave whole lot of other favourites even in this age group out so the next part is definitely in the works. I ended up going with books that we are currently reading over and over again. Let me know what titles you have and love out of these, if there is any here you want to buy and also any special favourites in your home.