Wildlife in a City Pond

Wildlife in a City Pond

Written by: Ashish Kothari

Illustrated by: Sangeetha Kadur

Published by: Pratham Books

First English Edition: 2014

A friend wrote this, of the book, on facebook "... brought back memories of a few mornings spent wandering around here..." and what little doubts I had of procuring it were brushed aside. Not many books succeed in make that connect with readers. 

I believe that there is over-kill of information and exercise or module based books in the gamut of conservation and environment education. We need to have interesting stories (besides of course the regular interactions and facilitation of platforms for these interactions) to make the younger ones aware of the environment and enthuse them to conserve it. As a friend says “we are a nation of stories and story-tellers and that is what works”. Stories that ideally talk of corresponding action as well.

This is the kind of book that perhaps one had been looking for!

The illustrations gel endearingly with the text - are simple and lovely. They seem natural (in other words are not overdone like in couple of other books of this genre) and while they depict species mentioned in the text there are no labels and pointers (which helps). Loved the page with owls and nightjar.

A line that fascinated the rain lover in me “The first raindrops on the thirsty land gave off a lovely earthy smell. But they also did what no magician could do, turning the brown earth into an oasis of green and blue.”

However, one ever longs for more from books.

I would have been happy to not have words like “cacophony” at the very beginning that in a way jar the reading flow in that they are relatively “difficult” to comprehend. Then there was “gait”. Recall being told once at MYRADA “If each of your colleagues cannot read and comprehend your report it is not a well-done document”

Could the last part that talks of saving the lake have been a little longer? Like Jane Austen said “if a book is well written, I always find it too short.” 

Link to the review on Pratham Book's Blog here.