We publish joyful, exciting, beautiful books for children from ages 0-8. We publish a wide range of voices from a diverse range of backgrounds.
These books may be woke but they are not worthy and gloomy. Children will laugh, gasp and bop along to the rhythmic text found in these stories.
Fed up with searching in vain for diverse books for their kids, co-founders Sheju Adiyatiparambil-John and Judy Skidmore, started making their own.
"In 2021 kids books published with a main character from a racially minoritised background remains extremely low at 9% .” Stark facts from the annual CLPE report.
Often when people of colour are featured in a book the focus is on their "difference" or their struggle. And although addressing themes of difference or struggle are important, so are books about normal stuff, funny stuff, adventures. Like sisters playing all day who just happen to have vitiligo, or kids with two mums or two dads, a South Asian child making paper boats with their granny, or a mixed race child eating pancakes, or meeting dinosaurs!
So here we are. We publish fantastic stories where the protagonists represent all genders, ethnicities, and abilities. Sign up to our newsletter to hear about new books and follow us on instagram, facebook or twitter.
Arti Jain is a poet, blogger and author. She lives in Doha, Qatar, with her husband and half a dozen neem trees. Her work has appeared in publications including Kindle India Magazine, Poems India, Gulmohur Quarterly and The Kali Project. She writes and performs poetry in English and Hindi. Her Insta handle is @arti.a.jain and she blogs on
Tanmay Acharya is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Bangalore. Tanmay did his bachelor's degree at the Arts University of Bournemouth. His work is an amalgamation of his inspiration from printmaking techniques and is informed by his daytime design practice.
Victoria Blain is a Gambian American textile artist, author and teacher. She has written and illustrated two children’s books; The Extraordinary Chameleon and Crooked Witch Soup. She enjoys reading picture books, historical fiction and drinking lots of tea. She is greatly influenced by her Wolof heritage and believes inspiration can be found in ordinary things. She lives in Kingston NY with her family and is currently working on her third children’s book.
Devjani is a writer and teacher of Indian origin who lives with her dog, her husband and two children, in a small town called Rugby in the UK. Devjani has already published poetry and a novel (Mirrors, published by Holland House). Her story with Parakeet Books is her children’s book debut and we are extremely excited to share it with you all.
Anushka (she/they) is a queer non-binary illustrator & collage artist based in New Delhi. They enjoy scrapbooking and collecting interesting leaves & flowers. A lot of their work revolves around depicting people & especially kids in communion with nature and the wilderness. When she's not furiously scribbling on her ipad, you can find them tending to their plants or looking at the trees.
Our wonderful author, Abbi-Jean Reid, died in winter 2022. Abbi was a Marketing executive at Little, Brown and was thrilled to work with Parakeet Books. She loved reading and she created the most gorgeous caper about two sisters, Ready for an Adventure. Read more about Abbi here
Amazingly Bhumika, from Jaipur, is actually a science graduate. Later she studied graphic design and discovered her passion for children's book illustration, character design and cartoons. While working as a graphic designer, Bhumika started learning how to make digital illustrations through YouTube tutorials. Now she’s a fully fledged freelance illustrator and overjoyed that she’s finally in love with her work. Bhumika created the enchanting characters in Parakeet Books’s most recent story, Ready for Adventure.
Born in Como, Vanessa graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. She works as an architect, interior designer, graphic designer and illustrator. In her work she tries to merge her many passions, brought together by creativity and the use of colour. For Parakeet Books she illustrated the adorable Buddy's Pancakes and sumptuous Scout's Bedtime.
Children’s illustrator, painter and graphic artist. Previously Anastasiya worked as an early childhood art teacher. She truly loves and is inspired by drawing with and for children. Her work for Eve’s New Brother is achingly beautiful and the love between the family members shines through every page.
Creator of our first and most beloved books, the Alice and Judy Adventures. These were lovingly devised by Alan over 30 years ago. The stories have not aged and the environmental themes are as relevant today as they ever were.
Geogy keeps things ticking over with Parakeetbooks.com - his 5-year-old daughter loves Buddy's Pancakes!
S. Meena Kumari is passionate about literacy and the Tamil language. Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world spoken by 70 million people worldwide. Meena lives in Chennai where our co-founder, Sheju, grew up.
Judy writes, edits and designs the books, website and promotional material. She found her hidden performer when she had to get right outside her comfort zone and start reading to large groups of children. Turns out she’s quite good at it!
Sheju writes and edits stories and handles the business side of things. He loves working with illustrators to get the pictures exactly right - his daring choices have given Parakeet Books two of the best illustrators out there: Vanessa Arduini and Anastasiya Epishina.
