‘A demand for picture books’: A children’s publisher surveys the field

A love of books and reading must be fostered when children are young. This is something experts, educators and parents can all agree on but how do we make this happen? Personally, my love for reading started because my mother used to make bedtime fascinating with her vast collection of stories. We looked forward to bedtime and waited to find what new story she would spin every night. As a mother myself, I ensure I keep this tradition alive by reading aloud to my kids, a habit I began long before my children were able to understand the words. Even so, I found that setting aside time for reading as a family activity is a great way to get kids to associate books with enjoyment and emotional connection.

Publishing for very young children

But when I look back on my childhood, my mother’s stories weren’t the ones I encountered in books. For a long time, the only English-language books I could access easily were about children who lived in England and America, and whose lives were very different from mine. And although there are far more Indian chapter books and stories being published, I felt there was a lack of these for very...

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