Kahani Tree is a unique little independent children’s bookstore in Mumbai. We offer a curated selection of unusual books for children, by independent publishers from all over India. We also have a range of delightful bilingual books and books in regional languages.
Through words and pictures, our books open to children a diverse, multicultural and exciting world. And yet, they have a unique Indian sensibility in the use of language, contexts and visuals.
Besides an unusual collection of books, Kahani Tree also organizes story-telling sessions, author interactions in schools and bookstores and helps to set up libraries and reading rooms.
At Kahani Tree, we are dedicated to developing a life-long love for reading. We believe that stories are magical and expand a child’s imagination. And we also believe that a love for books and reading is the best gift we can give children!
Kahani Tree supports small independent publishers whose books rarely find retail shelf-space. We work to provide a platform for these books, in our store as well as in schools, so that they can be experienced and enjoyed by many. We also promote books in Hindi and other regional languages, to make learning languages engaging and fun.
We love children’s books and we would be happy to help you find books you’ll love too. We know all our books and would be happy to understand your requirements to help you find what you are looking for. At Kahani Tree, we love telling you our favourite stories and showing you the ones that always work beautifully with the kids. And be warned, if you ask us about our favourite titles, you might end up with a bag full!
Kahani Tree also organizes story-telling sessions and author interactions, since we believe that these go a long way in making reading books fun and interesting. These events have been set up at schools, bookstores and literary festivals in the city.
Our most fulfilling activity has been the setting up of reading rooms and libraries in community schools and under-privileged schools. It gives us so much joy to make our books available to children in different parts of the country in the relevant regional languages, thereby opening up their little worlds and transporting them to new ones!
In March 2006, I discovered the wonderful range of children's books published by Tulika. That's when I realized that my sons - then 14 and 12 - had grown up without seeing Indian children's books that were not about gods and goddesses or the Panchatantra! And while the bookshelves in their room were filled with fabulous international books, we barely had books that were multicultural and told interesting stories about our people and our country.
In spite of frequenting bookstores in the city, I realized that such books were barely available in Mumbai. As a mother and a book lover, I felt like doing something so that our children were not growing up as strangers to their own culture. I wanted them to enjoy Indian stories and folk tales in English and other Indian languages. Besides, I believe it is important to make learning Hindi and our regional languages interesting for our children. And this can only happen by reading well-written stories in these languages that are also engaging and fun.
As a publisher with Vakils, I understood the problems that other independents like ourselves faced to make their books available in retail. So with Vakils' support, Kahani Tree began with a curated selection of children's books sourced from all over the country. Besides promoting them through school book fairs, we also have our own little corner in the Vakils office.
And we are proud that we do more than just sell books! With the book readings and author interactions that we organise in schools, bookstores and literary festivals in the city, we love to make children's stories come alive!
Sangeeta Bhansali
Founder