In an age of instant deliveries, one Mumbai mother decided to ship a different kind of package to fight a growing salient crisis: children’s declining reading habits. What began in her living room is now an app-based book rental service reaching over 300 Indian towns, betting that the physical book can still compete with the screen if it is as convenient as ordering milk or groceries online.
Now, each month, many houses with young children eagerly await the arrival of another cardboard box, this one carrying new books to replace the five they have already devoured. These are books selected by children and their parents on the neOwn app, an app-based book rental service by corporate veteran Kranti Gada, designed to foster consistent reading habits by making high-quality books easily accessible at home through convenient doorstep delivery and pickup.
The model involves choosing five books from 45,000-plus titles online, receive a box, return it a month later for a new set. It respects a child’s autonomy. “Kids are very particular,” Gada says. “If they’re reading a particular series or author or genre, they are stuck to it.”
Why five books? “We did a lot of trial and error,” Gada explains. “First we said we will send two books. Who will read more than two, three? But then we realised if the child does not like one of the two, they are stuck. The habit gets broken.”
Through small experiments with families, she discovered a simple rule: variety protects routine. “Five was working the best,” she says. “If they don’t like A, they can read B. It gives them choice, and an upper limit to aim for. Can I read five?”
Five books a month, 12 months a year, means 60 books passing through a child’s hands, whether or not each is finished. She insists the unfinished ones still matter. “Don’t worry even if they didn’t read half,” she tells parents. “They touched the books. They saw the names, they learnt something.”
A generation drifting from books
The founder Kranti Gada was a former Shemaroo Entertainment Chief Operating Officer.
For founder Kranti Gada, who started at PepsiCo on Kurkure, then moved to Shemaroo Entertainment in 2006 where she built its digital division, launched new businesses, and eventually became Chief Operating Officer in 2018, the challenge began at home. As the mother of two boys, now 11 and 13, she found herself navigating starkly different reading habits.
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“My oldest son is an avid reader. If he steps into a bookshop he will rake up a bill in no time,” she says. Her younger son presented the opposite picture. “He does not want to read.”
Both had received the same nurturing, evening reading rituals, a house filled with books, but responded differently. The younger boy would claim to have finished books in unrealistic timeframes, until a moment of honesty revealed the pressure he felt.
“He told me mama, I felt if bhaiya (brother) was reading, I also had to read, so I would just come and tell you I had finished the book even though I had not read it, and I felt so bad,” Gada recalls.
“We realised he is more of an auditory learner. So we started reading every night, and he is into sports, so we would bring out books or buy books of people whom he relates to, whom he worships.” This gave her the idea of providing younger children books on a variety of subjects so they may discover what they like.
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This personal struggle mirrored a national trend. A recent study by the National Literacy Trust has revealed a significant decline in reading habits among children in India. According to the survey, only 34.6 per cent of children aged 8 to 18 enjoy reading in their free time.
She also realised children not reading enough was a common complaint at school PTAs and among mothers in her society. Things really came to a head during Covid. “On a lot of our society WhatsApp groups, parents would put out, okay, I have these books. Does anybody want to borrow them? Or people would put out that my child is on book number five of Dragon Masters or whatever, and does anybody now have 6, 7 and 8?”
This confirmed for her that the need for a sustainable solution was widespread, and parents were seeking community-driven solutions. The model addresses multiple pressures such as cost (“buying books is expensive”), clutter, and most critically, inconsistency. “Maybe the mother doesn’t even know that the book is over. The child has been happily watching extra an screen every day, and then after five days the mother discovers.”
From mom’s insight to business model
Children of different ages participating in a Readathon organised by neOwn.
This focus on child psychology, however, was just one part of the puzzle. The bigger challenge was fitting books into the modern parent’s life.Early pilots of a peer-to-peer book-sharing model revealed a crucial insight about the modern parent. “The time available with a mom is very, very little. She is looking for convenience.”
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The final, pivotal piece clicked when she considered the broader consumer shift. “It struck me that today in our life, everything is becoming convenient. Gold coins and silver coins can be ordered online. People are prioritising convenience and that also digital convenience.”
The epiphany was that the physical book needed to be accessed with digital ease. “The product is physical. It is going to physically come to my house. But I want to access it or buy it digitally.”
Thus, neOwn, a digitally managed platform for circulating physical children’s books, was born. Launched in 2022, it now delivers to “more than 300 cities and towns of India,” with a sevenfold increase in subscribers in the past year.
“The idea was that once a mother has subscribed, she should not have to lift a finger, literally,” Gada says. Discovery, selection, delivery, pickup, everything had to require the least possible intervention. “It should be very, very easy.”
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How neOwn works
The process now works like this. A parent selects books on the app. Delivery arrives in 2 to 5 days within Mumbai, 4 to 8 days outside. The month begins only after delivery. When the child finishes reading, the parent taps “Done Reading,” chooses the next batch, and neOwn arranges both pickup and delivery, often on the same run.
The service is supported by an almost industrial hygiene system. “We do a thorough check twice, once when they come back and once before they go out. Board books we clean so they’re 100 per cent sanitary,” she says. Anything in poor condition disappears from circulation.
The economics are designed for accessibility. In Mumbai, an annual subscription brings the monthly cost to ₹330 (about £3.15)—”less than what you’ll pay at Starbucks for a coffee,” as Gada frames it. Outside the city, a ₹100 shipping fee covers the complex reverse logistics of collection.
Curating a universe for young minds
They have accumulated 45,000 unique titles, spanning early readers, picture books, chapter books, graphic novels, and middle-grade fantasy.
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The company buys in bulk for popular releases. When the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book came out, they pre-ordered 100 copies. For ages 6 to 9, the most borrowed series are predictable to anyone familiar with Indian school bags: Geronimo Stilton, Dragon Masters, Magic Tree House, and Enid Blyton, followed by Dog Man, Cat Kid, Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson.
She includes older series too. “We put out Famous Five, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew. I strongly believe in keeping them alive,” she says.
Some parts of the catalogue are inherited. NeOwn has access to the Shemaroo Book Library, founded in 1962, which once served Mumbai’s industrial families and holds imported editions that are no longer printed. “Many titles are not available in India now,” she says. These circulate alongside new releases in the same monthly boxes.
The collection blends global hits with Indian titles, featuring strong demand for books on emotional learning. “The biggest in-demand topic is books that handle emotions,” Gada says.
Each book is curated. “Every single title is read by our curator, or she gets someone to read it and give a review,” she explains. The system is manual by design.
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Why this bet might pay off
But what about concerns about damage? Initial fears proved unfounded. Less than 1 per cent of returns are significantly damaged. “As a country we worship Vidya. So, books are not intentionally damaged.” Her damage policy, 40 per cent of MRP for lost books, sees little conflict. “Nobody argues with us in 90 per cent of the cases. The parents inform us before sending us the books.”
The company has a “limited” selection of Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati titles. English remains the dominant language in its catalogue, reflecting demand.
In a world delivered by app notifications, Kranti Gada is betting that the quiet thrill of a monthly book box, the smell of paper, the crack of a new spine, can still turn a child’s head away from the glow of a screen. One doorbell ring at a time.
The founder Kranti Gada was a former Shemaroo Entertainment Chief Operating Officer.
Children of different ages participating in a Readathon organised by neOwn.
