Chennai: Cat lays an egg. Certainly sounds weird, does it not?
But do not ignore it, for you’d miss all the fun writer Aparna Karthikeyan has penned in Cat’s Egg, a book for children aged four to six, published by Karadi Tales publishers.
Speaking about the book launched recently, Aparna tells News Today, “As the title suggests, the book is about a cat who thinks that it has laid an egg and the suspense is to demystify what it is, where it seeks help from a dog, koel and a turtle as it takes a village to raise an egg, according to Indian tradition.”
Although the storyline is simple and silly, it has been conveyed with minimal prose and letting the illustration do the talking.
Despite hailing from Germany, the illustrator, Christine Kastl, has given Indian flavour to the book.
It should be noted that the author has not only given free run for wit, humour and imagination but also speaks about treating animals on a par with other living creatures.
“I have expressed my love for animals and also introduced the idea of empathising with animals,” she informs.
Elaborating on the thought, the author, who identifies herself as a dog mother, tree hugger and a storyteller, adds, “The characters have been anthromorphised, making them talk, think and behave like humans. When a story is narrated in such a way, you create empathy for them. The idea is to make people treat them kindly which is why I am keen on writing stories for children.”
When asked about how she conceived the fable, the author quips, “I have no idea. The thought flashed following a social media post where a friend suggested to develop it into a story. It is also my desire to write something funny for children that has brought me here.”
The author later approached publishers with the idea and she was asked to expand, develop and revise. “It was initially a simple dialogue between a cat and a dog. With the editor helping me out, we rewrote the story to become what it is and it took more than seven drafts to bring out the final version,” Aparna says.
Speaking about challenges, she explains that “The attention span of children cannot be judged and they must be hooked throughout by plotting a suspense at the end of every page, so the script had to be analysed thoroughly. Usage of illustration helps in making the reader be with the book.”
Despite being a journalist for a long time in one of the leading national dailies, she opines that writing the book was not a cinch. “Books for children may look extremely simple to ideate and write and stop writing from an adult’s perspective. However, it requires a lot of mind work and is not like writing for older people. The author has to be extremely conscious in considering the choices of words and must convey ideas precisely and clearly.”
Prior to Cat’s Egg, Aparna published Kaali Wants to Dance for older children and currently is working on two non-fiction books for adults that speak about rural India and Tamilnadu and livelihoods.