The big cat’s day out

Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) is home to many leopards

How would it feel if a big cat was spotted in the vicinity of your home? Wouldn't you be too terrified to move? Or, would you greet it and invite it for tea? Video footage of leopards jumping over compound walls in and around Mumbai's Goregaon make this writer ponder man-animal conflicts. There's a Leopard in my House (Daffodil Lane Books) by Vaishali Shroff introduces a child to the question of when or why an animal forages out of its natural habitat. Shroff's previous titles including Sita's Chitwan: Not Just a Walk in Nepal's First National Park, have focused on engaging young minds about wildlife. Her latest title is centred on the sensibilities spurred by community protests against the indiscriminate felling of trees at Aarey forest. The protests were aimed at having a Metro car shed built anywhere else without damaging the lungs of Mumbai.

Artworks by Urvashi Dubey from the book, There's a Leopard in my House

In the book, Leela, the young naturalist, comes back home from school one day and expects her mother to open the door for her. But a leopard welcomes her, serves her some hot tea and tells her how her house was once its home too. Will Leela be able to understand grown-up matters of forest land encroachment? The book nudges children to find out details about the plight of urban wildlife. The colourful illustrations by Urvashi Dubey beautify the charming honesty of this story. Despite it being a conscious read for children above four years, this writer was hoping the book would offer a hint of a pragmatic resolution towards the end.
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Also read other titles about the wild

Vaishali Shroff

The Plant Whisperer (Pratham Books)

Young Jaishree loves being in the company of plants. She decides to spend her life studying plants. The biography of ecologist Dr Jaishree Subrahmaniam, this book tells a story of passion and gumption.
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Words for Birds (Black Kite/Hachette)

The book is a collection of ornithologist Salim Ali's radio talks. The 35 talks that comprise this book were broadcast between 1941 and 1985, and show Ali's skill as an avian expert.
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Cost: Rs 463

Ternata (Dattsons)

This book documents a layman's attempts to understand the city's flora during his visits to SGNP. The name of the book follows the discovery of tri-foliate leaves with variations; in Latin, Ternata means ‘in threes'.
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Cost: Rs 4,000