Our first book, அமுதா Loves to Read is aimed at being the first of a Tamil children’s book series that is accessible, relatable and inclusive in a world where representation matters. As a community, we are accustomed to accepting that our books are not on par with English books. With most existing Tamil books, our kids see amma making dosas in sarees and appa reading a newspaper in vetti. It’s simply not relatable to the Tamil diaspora. Instead, we want to showcase the realistic experiences of people living in the diaspora along with tackling issues of gender norms, colourism, intergenerational bonding, etc. Why does that matter? Because books are powerful. Children are influenced by what they see and read in books. Especially young children aged 0-5, whose screen time is often limited.

We are launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for our first book during Tamil Heritage Month in January. We chose this symbolic month to remind ourselves of the importance of growing our language and having characters in our kids’ lives that they can relate to. As we work towards launching the book, we will be sharing background information on the characters and their experiences. If these stories impact you, please share your own stories with us and our stories with others so we can all feel seen and heard and have a sense of belonging. This is more important now than ever before as we work our way out of this pandemic.

Our novel approach to teaching Thamizh is to make learning fun and interactive by introducing Thamizh words by categories. In our first book, the category is relationships and on each page, we introduce one word in Thamizh with the pronunciations in English below the word to make it appealing and accessible for non Thamizh readers as well. These words are woven into a simple story that is aimed to be engaging for young children ages 0-5. We will also have supplementary activities on our website which can be incorporated into story time to engage children of different ages.