Tara Books and the making of a book by hand From her studio Minus 9 Design, Rathna Ramanathan has worked with Tara Books on projects over the last sixteen years. Here, she reflects on her experiences of collaborating with Tara Books in the context of sustainable modes of design and production, and alternative models of [...]
In January, Tara publisher Gita Wolf was invited to be part of the jury to select entries for the prestigious Bologna Illustrators’ Annual for 2013. The selected illustrators were announced at the Bologna Book Fair last month, and their work was displayed at the fair. Here she writes about the experience and reflects upon how [...]
An Interview with Anushka Ravishankar On the fifteenth anniversary of the publication of her first book, India’s acclaimed nonsense poet Anushka Ravishankar talks to the team at Tara Books about the collaborative process behind making picture books for children. 8 people like this post. Like Unlike
Earlier this year Mithila art expert and enthusiast Peter Zirnis visited India’s Madhubani region. There he met with a range of artists working in what can broadly be defined as the Mithila style of folk art. He was guided by the artist Rambharos Jha, the talented author behind our latest handmade title Waterlife Since Peter discussed the book [...]
Tara’s outgoing resident designer Jonathan Yamakami reflects upon the creative journey he embarked upon when working on ‘I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail’. A 17th century English ‘trick’ poem, Tara’s version is illustrated by artist Ramsingh Urveti from India’s Gond tribe. 25 people like this post. Like Unlike
I was invited to the Guadalajara book fair, recently, on a publisher’s fellowship. Afterwards, my travels around Mexico took me to the state of Chiapas, to visit an extraordinary book making cooperative of Mayan women called Taller Lenateros, The Woodlanders’ Workshop. Impossible to sum up otherwise, I decided to turn my experience into a small [...]
In the aftermath of Delhi University’s decision to ban A K Ramanujan’s essay discussing disparate versions of The Ramayana, Tara publisher V.Geetha reflects upon the many lives of the text, and in particular our recently published retelling of the great epic from the female point of view, Sita’s Ramayana. 5 people like this post. Like [...]
Ganesh Jogi, musician and artist from Rajasthan-Gujarat, is no more. We met him and his wife Teju Behan in February 2010, and invited them to sing and draw for us. 8 people like this post. Like Unlike
A Workshop Exploring Indian Floor Patterns All over India, there are enduring traditions of women decorating the threshold of their homes with decorative patterns. Known by different names in various communities, they are called kolam in Tamil Nadu. Women create them every day with rice paste or powder, and by nightfall, they are usually gone. [...]
Recently, we were asked to write an article about our experience of gender in children’s books in the Indian context. It’s certainly a topical issue at the moment: a recent study in the US looking at almost 6,000 books published between 1990 and 2000 found that males are central characters in 57% of children’s books [...]