How to use this Page

Trees are so much a part of our daily lives, whether we take them for granted or find ourselves fighting for their survival: so it is perhaps unsurprising that there are many stories from all over the world that feature trees, woods or forests as a central theme or ‘character’… … Continue reading ... →

by Joydeb Chitakrar and Gita Wolf

{published 2013, by Tara Books}

Get ready. You may never have seen anything like this before. Have you ever read something that you feel like should be in a museum and not in your hands? And then you realize that’s the whole point of the perfection and portability of picture books, but still your mouth hangs open in awe?

This is one of those books.

The Enduring Ark is a retelling of the flood story from Genesis, and this line from the first page enveloped me in its storytelling.

You may have heard this story before, but great tales deserve to be repeated – and so let me tell it here again, in my way.

And so it goes, this age old story with a breath of new words. Spare text, stunning imagery. The strong lines hold bold saturated color. And I’m dearly smitten with the two crabs!

They found all forms of creatures: large and small, fierce and tame, with feet, and fins, wearing fur, scales and feathers. 

The book itself can be read page by page, left to right, as you are quite familiar with. But it also extends out like an accordion, the story literally unfolding before you.

Tara Books, of Chennai, South India, calls themselves a ‘collective of dedicated writers, designers and artists who strive for a union of fine form with rich content.’ This accordion-style scroll painting is the Bengali Patua style, which historically has been used to visualize mythological stories and aid the narration of a storyteller. What a sublime medium for their mission to unite fine form with rich content, right?

Also interesting? On the cover, the artist is named before the writer. Perhaps it’s because the words are a retelling? Or because the design of the book is what makes it extra special? I’m not sure, but I found that really lovely.

The Enduring Ark releases on May 14, 2013. If you are a fan of book design, fantastic story, and clever engineering, don’t miss this innovative book!

Big thank to the publisher, Tara Books, for providing a copy of this book for review. Why not connect with them on Twitter or Facebook if you think their work is magical, too?!

A few weeks ago I blogged about Tara Book’s new Book Building. Situated in South Chennai, India, the Book Building not only houses all aspects of Tara Books‘ award winning  publishing business but is a unique cultural space dedicated to exploring the form of the book. Book lovers and visual lovers of all ages are invited to the Book Building to enjoy ongoing exhibitions, watch visual artists at work, participate in workshops, browse though books and art prints in the  bookstore, enjoy specially commissioned wall murals created by a range of Tara Book artists, and more!

A new exhibit has just been launched at the Book Building and we thank Pallavi Vadhia of Tara Books for sending us the details. The Jungle in the Book is an interactive art exhibition which runs until the end of August and aims to promote the joy of  reading, picture books and art to children. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of free events and educational workshops (offered in English and Tamil) for children, their parent and educators. Highlights include:

Saturday, July 21 ~ What is a Picture Book? What can we do with it? An informative workshop showing parents and teachers ways to use picture books. Conducted by Salai Selvam, an education and literacy activist and Tara Books Publisher Gita Wolf,

Saturday, August 11 ~ Look, Read and Think! How pictures communicate ideas – Working with the idea of human rights. Hosted by Salai Selvam.

Saturday, August 18 ~ An Artist at Work: open house event. Watch Sunita an amazing artist from the Meena tribe in Rajasthan.

To see the entire list of events and workshops click here. To see some photos of the exhibit visit Tara Books’ Facebook page.

I love seeing skilled craftspeople at their work. This great picture book is screen printed white ink on craft paper, hand-folded and hand-bound, made in the tradition of Warli art from West India. And it looks gorgeous! You can buy a copy here.

(via CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATION: Do!)

I already had a post earmarked to share with you from the wonderful Playing by the Book, and today she has another one – so here they both are:

Firstly, this great focus on children’s books from Norway, part of Zoe’s Read Around Europe – so we can look forward to more great country round-ups.

And today this wonderful post about last year’s New Horizons winner at the Bologna Book Fair, Do! by Ramesh Hengadi, Rasika Hengadi, Shantaram Dhadpe, and Kusam Dhadpe, with Gita Wolf (Tara Books, 2010). What makes this post extra special is that Zoe and her children have created a beautiful pillowcase using Warli techniques using the video of Do! from Tara Books, included in the post. Watch, read and be inspired – yes, Do!

Shortly we will be moving on to a new update on the main PaperTigers website – but, of course, there’s still time to explore Children’s Literature from India and the Indian diaspora, if you haven’t already, and the features will remain readily available via the permalink to the October/November homepage.

And just to remind you of the wealth of resources and sheer joyful reading out there, here’s a glimpse at some recent blog posts from that rich and varied Indian diaspora, as well as India itself:

Find reviews of Signature: Patterns in Gond Art, edited by Gita Wolf, Bhajju Shyam and Jonathan Yamakami (Tara Books, 2010) and The Yellow Bird by Lila Majumdar, illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta and translated by Kamala Chatterjee over at Saffron Tree. Both books sound and look wonderful…

Read this post from author Uma Krishnaswami, in which she muses on cultural perspectives, and on making unfamiliar words clear through their context in a story…

Mitali Perkins is (sort of) on her winter break from her blog (her back-posts are still worth perusing, though) BUT you can read a new interview with her over at Color on Line, conducted by Tarie of Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind…

A recent post on Pratham Books’ blog, Revamping Mythological and Traditional Indian Stories, will be of particular interest to graphic novel fans; and they also have lots of news and photos from the recent Bookaroo in the City festival in New Delhi…

Gita Wolf, publisher and director at Tara Books,  has posted a wonderful entry on the Tara Books Blog entitled The Politics of Voice: Folk and Tribal Art in Children’s Literature in which she talks about her presentation at the recent IBBY Congress:

“It may seem, at first glance, that the majority is the dominant force in every society, but those who dramatically change their world, now and throughout history, always belong to the minority.”  With this motto, the International Board on Books for Young People – IBBY – organized their Congress this year in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The theme was The Strength of Minorities. Given Tara’s work with folk and tribal art communities, I was invited to contribute, to talk about how these ‘outsider’ artists could change the course of children’s literature.

The fundamental question for me had to do with how we can re-imagine children’s literature. What possibilities are there in a publishing world that is increasingly dominated by big business, bestsellers, and a certain sameness in what we think is suitable for children?

When we started publishing in 1995, there were very few picture books for children in India. Ours has been a largely oral tradition, and the notion of children’s literature came from abroad. So Indian children’s books tended to be derivative. To create something that was original, we looked around for Indian illustrators, and what excited us most was the potential we saw in traditional artists.

To read the rest of the article (which contains some lovely illustrations and images!) click here .

Note: The image above is by Gond artist Bhajju Shyam and is from the book The Flight of the Mermaid, text by Gita Wolf and Sirish Rao (Tara Books, 2009).  Bhajju is currently featured in our PaperTigers Illustrator Gallery.

I had heard of the book The Night Life of Trees, by Chennai-based Tara Publishing, and the fact that it had won the Bologna Ragazzi “New Horizons” Award (the first title from India to do so) before going to the Bologna Book Fair. The award spotlights the cultural heritage and innovative drive coming from children’s book publishing in the Arab world, Latin America, Asia and Africa, so I knew the book was bound to be a treat. But nothing could have prepared me for the jolt I experienced when I finally saw it.

When you flip through the book’s pages you understand why it has won a prestigious children’s book award even though it was originally created as an art book. The book rekindles one’s sense of wonder. Everything about it invites closer inspection: the wonderful ink smell; the texture of the handmade paper; the intricacy of the majestic trees inhabited by creatures; the myths and folktales accompanying them…

Tara Publishing’s website states that their books are “largely visual in nature – and radical, witty and informed in spirit.” The Night Life of Trees is, no doubt, one such book. Silk-screened and hand-bound, with its luminous trees jumping out of the pages’ black backdrop, this book offers a glimpse into the world views of three of the finest artists from the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh, in Central India, namely, Ram Singh Urveti, Durga Bai and Bhajju Shyam.

The idea for the book, we learned from a presentation given by Tara founder Gita Wolf and editor Sirish Rao on the first day of the book fair, came out of one of Tara’s illustrators’ workshops. Participants from the Gond tribe kept including trees on every single one of their drawings. “When asked to draw a bird, they would draw a bird on a tree; when asked to draw a person, they would draw a person next to a tree; when asked to draw clouds, they would draw clouds over a tree, and so on,” (more…)