In January 2015, I moved back to India after living in Silicon Valley for a decade. I had left as a student and returned a full-fledged adu...
In January 2015, I moved back to India after living in Silicon Valley for a decade. I had left as a student and returned a full-fledged adult with a three-year-old in tow. Naturally, my priorities revolved around my child. One of my primary concerns about moving back was my child’s development. But, as the perks of the Indian lifestyle became clear to us, we gradually settled down and so did my apprehensions.
The one thing my child and I both sorely missed was a children’s bookstore. Back in the US, we used to frequent neighbourhood bookshops, especially to attend weekly storytelling sessions, community events, and to talk to the knowledgeable booksellers. In Gurgaon, the options for these were non-existent. We tried to go to libraries in Delhi but couldn’t keep up the frequency of these visits. Also, we found the latest illustrated books hard to come by.
Everyone stocked books by Julia Donaldson and Eric Carle, but the world of picture books is so vast and diverse that every library visit left us underwhelmed. We were growing used to the hours of research for finding books, being self-reliant, and making do with the less-than-perfect condition in which books came through online sellers, when we...
