With witches as its protagonists and Shakespeare’s Macbeth for inspiration, city-based author Shobha Viswanath’s new picture book, A Tangle of Brungles, is a humourous narrative written in verse by Viswanath with vivid illustrations by Thai-German artist Culpeo S Fox.
Speaking about the idea behind the book, Viswanath says, “I wanted to write a book about collective nouns. I also had an idea about the witches in Macbeth. The next thing I knew, I was writing verses about a spell gone wrong, peppered with creepy crawly animals and discovering hilarious collective nouns along the way.”
Digital detox
In addition to being an author, Viswanath is also the co-founder of city-based publishing house Karadi Tales, established in 1996, which specialises in children’s books. “Karadi Tales became the first Indian publishing house to come up with audiobooks for children in India. Over the years, we moved into picture books, particularly since it allowed us to play around with different stories and visual styles,” she says. Talking about how the growth in technology has lead to multiple digital options becoming easily available to children today, Viswanath feels that the physical book still holds a special place and continues to be the preferred choice for parents looking to limit screen time for their children. “Further, publishers tend to spend a lot of time innovating with their formats and layouts, especially in pop-up and tactile books. Ebooks on the other hand, homogenise the book, and children don’t get to enjoy the multitude of formats that the physical books come in,” she adds.
Creatively inclined
An admirer of children’s authors like Anushka Ravishankar, Julia Donaldson and Jon Klassen, Viswanath says her readers can look forward to a host of new books coming up from Karadi Tales in addition to creative events in the works for them. “We’re planning to launch our second edition of the writing workshop we conducted earlier this year, and we are also planning an illustration workshop,” she says, adding that a storytelling session in collaboration with InKo Centre is also on the cards for next month.
Karadi Tales Picturebooks, Rs. 399.