The kaka sings...

You can find the full story of Tulika's 15 year journey on the Tulika site. Here's one part of the story:

Tulika started publishing multilingual children’s books in 1996. Fifteen years on, the Tulika kaka is busier than ever. And, save three months right at the beginning when kaka nested in a one-room hall on top of a flight of rickety iron stairs, home has been 13, Prithvi Avenue, First Street, Abhiramapuram, Chennai 600 018.

People have come, and mostly stayed; interns have summered, and wintered too; more tables, chairs and computers have found space. But most of all, there have been books, books, books…

Today, with more than 300 titles and the wind beneath its wings, the Tulika kaka calls in many voices, many languages, many images, to children and parents and teachers, but most of all to children of all ages.

For 15 years, Tulika’s effort has been unwavering: to create quality books for children in a range of Indian languages with writing and art that combine the traditional and the contemporary in fresh, exciting ways; to create books that reflect experiences of living in a plural and diverse society and of different childhoods in an economically and socially divided world. Most of all, to make the books accessible to all children everywhere.

Doing this has been unbelievably challenging and enriching.

in many languages . . .

Most of the books come in English and eight other Indian languages. They bring to children stories of the real and the fantastical, folktales and myths retold in contemporary ways offering new insights, explorations of wildlife and environment, slices of history and geography, scents of people and places.

At this very moment, the Tulika bookshelves hold a staggering 954 titles in English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Bangla.

• English - 160

• Hindi - 123

• Tamil - 125

• Malayalam - 69

• Kannada - 116

• Telugu - 102

• Marathi - 90

• Gujarati - 88

• Bangla - 81

Of these, 37 are bilingual titles: English with the eight Indian languages we publish in

– Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Bangla. Not to forget

the odd book in Oriya (Riddle of the Ridley), Urdu (My Mother’s Sari and The Mountain that Loves a Bird), Nepali (Takdir the Tiger Cub). It doesn’t end here because…

…Additionally, Line and Circle, Takdir the Tiger Cub and My Mother’s Sari have been done in French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Somali, Dutch, German, Malay, French, Arabic, Albanian, Chinese, Czech, Farsi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese for readers in the UK and US.

Read the rest here...