In today’s Indian children’s books, the planet isn’t just background scenery—it’s the heartbeat of the story. A girl named Savi learns from an ancient tree that her climate-perfect city, Shajarpur, is slipping into danger, and only she can save it. In Mumbai, young Zara rolls up her sleeves to turn a forgotten dump yard on Sunderbaag Street into a garden. And in a haunting reimagining of a fairytale, No White wanders a world where the snow has vanished and the seven friends work in a mine.
These are not the moral lectures, but plotlines in children’s books that swap sermons for action, and guilt for grit. Rooted in the heat, dust, and monsoons of children’s neighbourhoods, they spark imagination while grounding young readers in the reality of their changing world. The message is clear: the climate crisis isn’t somewhere else, sometime later. It’s here, and the heroes who can change it are already on the page.
The spark was lit in 2019 when Bijal Vachharajani’s A Cloud Called Bhura hit the shelves. The eco-fantasy about a smog monster taking over Mumbai quickly became a bestseller, proving there was both appetite and urgency for such narratives.
“There is definitely a keen interest in writing on the environment and climat e change for children,” says Meghaa Gupta, author, publishing consultant, and curator of the Nature Writing for Children course at Azim Premji University. “As many as 40-45 English titles of environmental fiction and non-fiction for children are released in a year. Then there are translations and books in Indian languages. Publishers across the board—big or small— are interested in publishing such titles because it is a subject that is becoming increasingly urgent.” In a newsletter edited by Gupta and Vidya Mani solely focusing on children’s books on environment, there are usually more new books than space to feature them.
Writers, too, are pushing boundaries in how they frame the environment for children. No longer a distant theme, it is depicted as immediate and urgent. Illustrations heighten the emotional resonance, while stories often intersect with history, fantasy, activism, and even the emotional journeys of children.
For Vachharajani, the starting point was to make the subject tangible. A Cloud Called Bhura was written when she learnt about the Asian brown cloud, a layer of air pollution that recurrently covers South Asia. Instead of overwhelming readers with complexity, she recast it as something familiar, hovering just above their heads. “I have always been fascinated by how children question and care so much; they are the best readers,” she says. The response has been consistent ever since her first book. Her subsequent titles—including Savi and the Memory Keeper and Go Wild—have only deepened her reputation as one of the strongest voices in this space.
The range of subjects is expanding. Wildlife remains a favourite, but newer themes are emerging: urban restoration, mining, tribal rights, extreme weather, human–wildlife conflict, public health, and agriculture. “When I started my work in this area six years ago, green literature was seen narrowly as writing about forests, wildlife, or climate,” says Gupta. “Now, I’m glad to see that it has broadened.”
The list is not limited to fiction. Non-fiction, too, is gaining ground, with titles like Gupta’s Unearthed: The Environmental History of Independent India and Ranjit Lal’s Our Potpourri Planet.