We created this stream of children’s literature creation to address a critical gap in literacy in India, the lack of engaging, culturally relevant books in children’s home languages. Despite strong policy emphasis on multilingual education, most books in primary school libraries are either translations of Western or urban-centric stories, or overly moralistic texts that fail to connect with children’s lived experiences, especially in rural and marginalized contexts. This disconnect reduces children’s motivation to read and limits the development of a joyful reading culture.
We observed that teachers, who deeply understand children’s linguistic and cultural contexts, are rarely recognized as creators of children’s literature. This presented an opportunity to bridge both gaps by enabling teachers to become authors of original, contextually rooted stories.
Our innovation focuses on co-creating local language reading materials with teacher-authors through structured workshops, editorial support, and collaboration with professional illustrators to bring their stories to life. This approach not only addresses the shortage of relevant books but also builds a sustainable pipeline for locally grounded content creation. By working within government systems, we ensure that these materials are produced at scale and reach children through school libraries.
Our innovation follows a structured, collaborative model of co-creating children’s books with teachers. We partner with government education systems to identify educators who have an interest in storytelling and engage them in intensive residential workshops. Here they are introduced to high-quality children’s literature, narrative techniques, and non-didactic writing approaches.
Participants develop original stories rooted in children’s lived experiences, which are then refined through iterative editing, illustration, and design processes with support from professional writers and designers.
To date, we have co-created over 200 titles across 10 states. Evidence of impact includes increased teacher engagement with library programs, more demand from state governments for additional titles and translations, and the emergence of active teacher-author communities that continue to write for children.
The model does not rely on proprietary technology; instead, it is a replicable methodology that combines capacity-building with system integration to sustainably improve access to relevant reading materials.
In states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra, these materials have been printed and distributed widely across schools. The government’s commitment is evident in the financial investment made to. Support and sustain this initiative.
In the next 2-3 years, the goal is to train the same cohorts of teacher-authors wherever possible. The aim is to strengthen their understanding of children’s literature as a genre, while also engaging them on how they are using these resources within their school libraries.
This effort involves the following steps:
Partner with local education systems to identify interested teachers
Conduct workshops to build understanding of children’s literature
Support editing and illustration of manuscripts
Collaborate to print and distribute books
Build teacher-author communities to sustain creation and classroom use
Contact the Quality Reading Material team in India, at qrmteam.india@roomtoread.org.
