The silent revolution: Why today’s children’s books aren’t what you remember

This visibility has also changed how stories are written. Shroff believes contemporary books are more inclusive, filled with characters who rarely appeared earlier—queer and transgender protagonists, children from different regions, and stories that reflect the layered realities of India. Her own writing often brings her face-to-face with the emotional weight children carry.

During a school visit in Kharagpur, a young boy approached her after reading The Strange Case of Nayantara, a book on the importance of consent. “He said, ‘Ma’am, I haven’t told anybody but I have experienced this.’ He felt heard, seen. That’s when you know the book has made a difference,” said Shroff. In another instance, a child told her he wanted to become a paleontologist after reading her book The Adventures of Padma and a blue dinosaur — despite not knowing the word before.

Yet the excitement of new themes is balanced by concerns about attention spans. Shroff acknowledges the challenge. “I write a lot of non-fiction. People pick it up thinking it will be boring,” she laughs, “so I make sure it doesn’t read like a textbook.” She looks for narratives rather than facts. Stories of submerged villages, families displaced by dams, the unseen consequences of environmental change. “I use all the tools of fiction – hooks, mystery, adventure – so the reader stays,” she added.

Shrinking attention spans

He feels that children are reading much less in today’s times. (Freepik)

Veteran writer Ranjit Lal, however, sees a different reality. He feels that children are reading much less in today’s times. He sees an environment where screens are dominating and imagination is shrinking, slowly. He often asks children whether they read Harry Potter books before watching the movies. Those who read first imagined their own Harry; those who watched first had “no answer” because Daniel Radcliffe’s face already had become their understanding of the character.

Even though the themes are evolving, there is a rise of caution. “Publishers are overly careful. Everything has to be vanilla. If every subject is avoided because someone’s sentiments may be hurt, where will the story come from?” His warning is clear: children’s literature cannot be flattened into safe, sanitised narratives.

Illustrator Soumya Menon offers a more layered perspective. For younger children, she argues, illustrations are the narrative. “They read the images, not the text. The picture does the heavy lift.” But she insists that good illustrations don’t replicate text; they add to it. “A well-illustrated book always says something more than the text.”

Soumya also points to a major shift not often discussed: form. Advances in printing have opened space for books that fold out, pop up, or run circular. “Technology allows us to play with form in ways earlier generations couldn’t,” she says. But when it comes to imagination, she echoes the need for interpretive openness. In projects with NGOs or communities, she has taken books back to children to check, “Does this feel real to you?” Their feedback often reshapes characters and colours.

If creators are expanding the possibilities of children’s books, those who build reading spaces have witnessed a shift in how children engage with them. Rabani Garg, a PHD student at University of Pennsylvania, who founded the Reading Caterpillar library in Delhi in 2009, it was because she saw a complete absence of accessible children’s libraries. Very quickly, she realised a library had to be more than shelves—it had to be “an active space,” buzzing with storytellers, artists, grandparents, caregivers. Community, not just consumption, was the core.

Garg also traces the boom in Indian children’s publishing to around the same time. Independent publishers began producing high-quality books with Indian names, settings and everyday worlds — though largely for the urban child. That gap, she noted, is now being challenged by several smaller organisations trying to depict “how India really lives”—stories from places that rarely appear in children’s books at all.

Printed versus digital

But she is careful not to prescribe nostalgia. Is print reading ‘better’ than digital? “I wouldn’t say one is better than the other,” she said. Digital reading changes how and where children read, but it is still reading. What worries her is not the format. It is the access, representation, and whether children see themselves and their worlds reflected.

At the other end of the spectrum is the festival space where children meet stories beyond the classroom. Swati Roy, co-founder of Bookaroo — a children’s literature festival, has witnessed tastes shift year by year. She sees “an explosion in genres,” from mythology to emotional-health books, and a deliberate push toward diversity in Indian publishing. At Bookaroo, she tries to keep sessions “conversational rather than academic,” letting children explore themes rather than hear books dissected. Some festivals include character walk-arounds, school-exclusive days, and outreach through Bookaroo in the City for children who can’t attend the main event.

Roy also observes the pressures shaping reading habits: screen exposure, rising book costs, shrinking leisure time for parents, and the convenience of online shopping that keeps children from experiencing the joy of browsing shelves. “With fast-paced audiovisual content becoming the norm, ready-made images remove any scope for imagination,” she added.