"Pratham" (first) in many ways

Let me declare at the outset that I have a prodigious memory for trivia.

When I think of my school days in Kolkata, India, the one name that pops to my mind is The Radiant Reader—an anthology of short stories written mostly by British writers from the mid-19th to the early 20th-centuries. It was our principal English textbook, which we were forced to befriend in grade two. It continued to bore us for the next four years, until grade six, when we were finally able to bid it adieu.

What’s interesting about this book as well as the vast majority of the later textbooks we read, was that they were foreign imports from British and American publishing houses. Because they were not printed in India, they were expensive.

I still remember how I would guiltily hand the book list to my father at the beginning of the school term, shriveling inwardly at the thought of how it would shrink his wallet. Back then, the indigenous publishing industry was in its infancy and its output of children’s book and those for adults alike, was minuscule. 

Things changed by the time I reached grade seven. The National Book Trust, India (NBT) began rolling out science and history textbooks. They were cheap. But they were also of poor quality. Their text was under-researched and their perspective (especially, in the case of history books) was unambiguously Hindu nationalist, even distorted. The patriotic fervor didn’t move us, really, for we yearned nostalgically for the older books.:

For many generations of middle-class Indians, works by [Enid] Blyton and the popular American books about Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys were essential childhood reading. Barely a handful of Indians wrote stories for children in English. But that may be changing.

In the past decade, a publishing boom, rising middle-class affluence and creeping cultural guilt among parents have led to a steady growth of Indian books for children with distinctly local characters and stories.

Pratham Books—the book wing of Pratham, a non-governmental organization working to provide quality education to the underprivileged children of India—publishes high-quality, low-cost children’s books. 

Pratham Books, a non-profit trust, was established in 2004 to fill a gap in the market for good quality, reasonably priced children’s books in Indian languages. The mission of Pratham Books is to make books affordable for every child in India.

Pratham Books publishes books in 11 Indian languages. The stories are written by Indian authors and are rooted in Indian culture and people. Each book is beautifully illustrated and the quality of printing is high. Most importantly, the books are priced between Rs. 10 and Rs. 25 (25 cents to 62.5 cents), making them affordable to millions of children.