Author Subhadra Sen Gupta, illustrator Rajiv Eipe declared winners of Big Little Book Award 2020

New Delhi: Author Subhadra Sen Gupta and illustrator Rajiv Eipe have been named winners of the Big Little Book Award 2020 for their contribution to children’s literature. Instituted by the Parag initiative of Tata Trusts, the chosen language of the fifth edition of the Big Little Book Award was English. In the previous years, the award considered children’s literature in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Kannada. Sen Gupta has authored books like The Constitution of India for Children, The Secret Diary of the World’s Worst Cook, History Mystery Dal Biryani, Let’s Go Time Traveling and Girls of India: A Mauryan Adventure. Eipe’s illustrations have appeared in titles like Dive, Pishi and Me, Ammachi’s Amazing Machines, Oh No! Not Again! and Dinosaur as Long as 127 Kids. The total number of nominations received this year was 318 and the winners were selected based on the quality of their body of work. The jury for the author category comprised Anil Menon, Ravi Subramanian, Shailaja Menon, Sujata Noronha and Usha Mukunda. It termed Sen Gupta a prolific but a particular writer who takes a route that is not an easy one. “We can count on her rigour and her background research to stand by her content and always find her positions are balanced and enable the reader to arrive at their own decisions,” it said. The jury for the illustrator category had Aashti Mudnani, Proiti Roy, Rani Dharker, Sunandini Banerjee and Thejaswi Shivanand. Eipe, it said, is brilliant with his skills and his illustrations tell stories of their own. “His work stands out in originality and his observations of the world around us are sensitive and full of humour. A book with Rajiv’s illustrations is visually attractive, informative with details that are delightfully quirky and takes a reader to a world of imagination and fantasy effortlessly,” the jury said. “It’s a great feeling of validation of all your work. Most importantly, it is about children. For 30 years, I’ve been talking to children and somehow it has been worth it,” Sen Gupta said about her win. “For years, not many people took children writing seriously. There were no awards and even commissions from publishers were difficult. I have gone through all that,” she added. Eipe said there is “so much great work happening right now and in the past and it is good to see that kind of work encouraged and appreciated”. Previous winners (authors) are Madhuri Purandare (Marathi), Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Bengali), Nagesh Hegde (Kannada) and Prabhat (Hindi). Illustrators to win the award are Atanu Roy, Proiti Roy, Nina Sabnani and Priya Kuriyan.