Art in kids' books comes of age

Artwork in children's books brings layers to the story and does the work of capturing the big, small moments in kids' lives, while tackling complex topics such as disability, caste, gender and sexuality with fun and whimsy

- Avantika Bhuyan

Sasha was blue all of December-her best friend, Naisha, who had been with her since nursery, had shifted from Gurugram to Mumbai. "We tried distracting her with dance and theatre workshops and playdates but she couldn't get over Naisha not being at school with her every day," says the seven-year-old's mother Radhika Chopra, a Gurugram-based freelance human resource consultant.

A month later, Sasha chanced upon the book Afo and I on Pratham Books' Storyweaver website by author-illustrator Canato Jimo. The story shows a young boy racing home from school to catch his sister, Afo, just before she leaves the village for the city. Jimo's illustrations create a metaphor between the changing fabric of the child's life and the changing landscape of his village-dense forests giving way to stumps of trees, bulldozers rendering lush hillscapes barren.

What appealed to Sasha was the way the illustrator captured the sense of loss of a companion. "It's like he under stood me," she says over the phone. "The boy in the story realises that no matter how much he will miss his sibling, he can continue sharing moments with her through letters.

I am also doing that with Naisha." Chopra was impressed with how Sasha created her own version of the story by seeing in the illustrations both a coping mechanism and a way of maintaining a connection with her friend.

While Jimo created the visuals in the context of the changing topography of his home state, Nagaland, Sasha based the visuals in her school. Chopra shared the book with Naisha too. "She is now working on her own version," she says.