A Storybook Success

Times of India talks about the success of children's publishing in India:


If the hallelujahs over the supercalifragilistic growth of Indian publishing ever pipe down, a tiny jubilatory chorus will be heard from an unsung corner – children's writing. Business here too is booming, if anyone cared to know. "It's growing at 7.5 percent a year," offers Manasi Subramaniam, editor of Karadi Tales. Evidence of this can be had at the bookstore, where children's shelves have multiplied like Biblical loaves over the last year. Old hands like Young Zubaan, Tulika, Tara, Pratham, Katha, Karadi Tales, have found new company in indie outfits like Little Lattitude and Fun OK Please, as well as imprints like Little Squirrel put out by distributor Leadstart Publishing.


"Indian children's writing has spiraled in the last two years," reports Sivaraman Balakrishnan, marketing manager at Crossword. "While Ruskin Bond and Anita Nair were some of the few writers you could earlier recall in this category, now there are at least ten you can rattle off the top of your head." A couple of years back, you had to tunnel deep to find contemporary Indian writing for children. "Now, Indian writers account for 22 percent of our total stock of children's literature," says Balakrishnan.


Read the entire article here.