Children are introduced to traditional English nursery rhymes such as “I am a Little Teapot” and “Hickory Dickory Dock” through the colorful and lively images of Kuhoo Mitra’s My First Book of Illustrated Nursery Rhymes with Fun Games and Activities. There are ten nursery rhymes in all in the book. The book is engaging and interactive since each rhyme is followed by an enjoyable task, such as joining the dots, coloring the picture, or identifying the differences.

This is Kuhoo’s first published book illustrated by her. She used colored pencils and paint to create each artwork by hand. After that, she used Adobe Photoshop to scan her drawings, make some digital edits, and add the text. She said, “Definitely the design aspect. I’ve painted and illustrated a lot, but I don’t have much expertise in design. Determining the right typeface and how to organize all the content on the page took a lot of effort” said Kuhoo.

“I adored creating the art, of course! Aside from that, though, I enjoyed working with Bani Sansad. Everyone there was incredibly helpful and friendly. On numerous occasions, we disagreed on how to proceed. However, we would ultimately talk it out and come to a fantastic agreement. Working with these talented individuals, being exposed to their many viewpoints, and learning from them was a pleasure. I created and organized every activity that goes along with the rhymes. As a child, I loved doing all the activities in the interactive picture books, and it felt like a full-circle moment when I got to come up with some for my book” added Kuhoo.

The book’s inventive and playful pictures immerse us in a fantastical universe where crooked men and crooked cats are real and teapots have faces. It is fantastic and suitable for grownups as well. We all read foreign picture books as children, but perhaps it’s time to switch things up.

Picture books published here for a long time were made on a very tight budget, with subpar paper and print quality and only a few little images on some of the pages. But that is about to change! The youngsters will be drawn into these fascinating realms by the full-page pictures in My First Book of Illustrated Nursery Rhymes with Fun Games and Activities. The printing and binding were expertly done by Bani Sansad Publishing House. The paper is of excellent quality, and the illustrations’ colors are precisely how she intended them to be.

This book serves as evidence that local publishing houses in Kolkata are producing excellent children’s books with illustrations created by local illustrators.

Priyanka Dutta