This Children’s Picture Book Is A Colourful Homage To The Bird Songs of India

Birds love to sing. The most musical of creatures, they have their own reasons to do so. It can be to call out and attract a loved one or to announce a new home. They call when they are alarmed, or simply because they want to sing—alone, in duets or in groups. And some even mimic other sounds they find around them.’ Celebrating these avian musicians around us, Puffin brings to you ‘The Jungle Radio: Bird Songs of India’, a picture book for children written and illustrated by Devangana Dash.

A vibrant, lushly illustrated and gorgeously designed picture book, The Jungle Radio introduces young readers (ages 5+) to the bountiful birds found in our Indian jungles and how they can be recognised through their sounds and calls. Featuring 30 of the many species found in India, it is a short introduction to birdwatching for the very young, where they identify birds and find out some surprising facts about them too. With a sprinkle of imagination, this story asks young readers to curiously seek adventures that lie in our national parks and forests.

Devangana Dash a New Delhi-based designer, illustrator and bookmaker. When she’s not designing books for a living, she reads, draws a little more and collects books for her dream library. About her book and experiences, she says “Bird sounds are everywhere in nature and to me this rich choir is just like the radio—with the constant chattering and singing. If you listen carefully, you can find this radio in a jungle, a bird or national sanctuary, in a park near you or your own balcony at home! I believe that we can sensitise children towards the sounds of nature, when they look at these sounds as a crucial, intangible component of the forest resource. The book hopes to nurture an audience that is aware and sensitive in its engagement with wildlife and the natural world.”

Devangana tells Homegrown more about her book, “Featuring thirty of the many birds—from the Woodpeckers drums, Hornbill’s trumpet and the Kingfisher’s blues—this story, along with a curious girl named Gul, asks young readers to curiously seek adventures that lie in our national parks and forests, and more importantly to ‘listen’ to the world around us and be sensitive towards nature and wildlife.” Brought to life by painterly illustrations, The Jungle Radio is a little story about the language of birds-their songs and sounds with a loud and clear call to listen to the world around us.

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