Ramesh Hengadi, Rasika Hengadi, Shantaram Dhadpe, and Kusam Dhadpe, with Gita Wolf,
Do!
Tara Books, 2010.

Ages: 3+

The picture book Do! is much more than the introduction to English verbs for young children that it first appears to be—as is the case with most projects of Tara Books.

The 8.5” x 11.25” hand-bound book, with its dark brown background and bright white pictograph-like cover drawing of women at a well, is silk-screen printed on recycled kraft paper and copiously illustrated with drawings in the traditional style of the Warli people of western India. Verbs depicted are almost all active—climb, run, hunt, chase, carry—as befits the lively Warli art style, which evolved from pictures women have traditionally drawn on the walls of their mud huts with lime and chalk-based paint. Stick figures, often portrayed in circles, demonstrate the verb action being introduced. Surrounding the figures are semi-abstract representations of the baskets, houses, flora and fauna of the Warli culture and environment. Suggestive of the art of both African and Australian native peoples, the white images stand out well against the warm grey-brown kraft paper.An explanation of Warli art and culture is included at the back of the book.

Do!, which won a 2010 BolognaRagazzi New Horizon Award and was recently selected by the Mexican government for a bilingual Spanish-Nahuatl edition, is an art book in many senses: handmade, soulful, inspired, inspiring. How it will hold up to the grimy clutching by which a very young child expresses his or her love for a book is a matter for conjecture. Some families will control access to protect the pages; others will prefer to see a child make free with such beauty. The wisest, perhaps, will buy two copies, one to save in their collection of Tara books, another for the hands-on do-ing that inspired the creation of Do! to begin with.

The wealth of detailed imagery in Do! offers much stimulating material for young children to use in making up their own stories.The book is another example of how Tara’s commitment to new and emerging tribal artists in India benefits an international audience.

Charlotte Richardson
October 2010