The Joy of Picture Books

For too long, the Indian children's shelf was dominated by imported titles — lovely books, many of them, but rarely ones in which an Indian child could see their own street, their own grandmother, their own festival. That has changed, and gloriously. Indian picture-book publishing is in a golden age. Here are ten favourites our editors return to again and again.

1. Gajapati Kulapati — Ashok Rajagopalan's sneezing elephant is pure read-aloud joy for the very young. A modern classic.

2. Tiger on a Tree — Anushka Ravishankar's spare, rhythmic nonsense verse, with Pulak Biswas's striking art, helped reinvent the Indian picture book.

3. Ammachi's Amazing Machines — Rajiv Eipe smuggles real science into a warm kitchen, one coconut laddoo at a time.

4. Chuskit Goes to School — a girl in Ladakh who uses a wheelchair dreams of the classroom; a tender, important story about inclusion.

5. Ekki Dokki — a much-loved Marathi folktale about two sisters and a magical pond, retold with warmth by Sandhya Rao.

6. The Blue Umbrella — Ruskin Bond's slender Himalayan tale of longing and generosity; a little older, and worth every page.

7. Same-Same and other bilingual titles — books that honour the two or three languages most Indian children grow up speaking.

8. Books by young authors — including several from our own list, proof that children are storytellers, not just readers.

9. Folktale retellings — from Panchatantra to regional oral traditions, freshly illustrated for a new generation.

10. Your own child's book — the one you write together, in your own language, about your own world. It may become their most treasured of all.

Want our full, ever-growing verdicts on many of these? Browse the Book Reviews section — and then go build a shelf your child can see themselves in.