Three -year-old Kabir loves new books. “We have a bedtime ritual where he gets to pick three books to read before he sleeps,” reveals his mother Deepti Bansal, a marketing professional. These days, his favourites are books featuring animals, and by now, he can identify most of them. “As I read a story, he likes to look for things he can point out,” she tells us. When he saw 1-2-3 Idlis in a Sambar Sea (AdiDev Press), a seek-and-find book written by Ashwitha Jayakumar and illustrated by Tanya Sharma, he was amused by the title and thrilled to check it out.

A panel featuring the titular idlis. ILLUSTRATIONS COURTESY/TANYA SHARMA