Song (English)

Sandhya Rao is one of the finest writers for children in India. Her books have won awards and accolades: My Friend the Sea won the Ambitious Children’s Book Project award at the Berlin Children and Youth Literature Festival, 2005. My Mother’s Sari was chosen as an Outstanding International Book, 2007, by the United States Board for Books for Young People (USBBY) and the Children’s Book Council. Rights to the book have been sold for USA, Canada, Australia and the U.K. In 1996, she joined Radhika Menon to create multilingual books for children at a time when independent children’s publishing in India was nascent. She has written over 20 books. Chennai-based Sandhya has an eclectic taste in books, music and films and loves listening to stories, especially real stories. She works at The Hindu.

Deepa Balsavar writes and illustrates books for children. For many years she has also been involved in developing educational material and training programmes. She is deeply interested in how children react to words and illustrations and hopes to take children a little further than the written word and the illustrated image.