Westland launches new children imprint 'Red Panda'

Leading Indian publishing house Westland announced the launch of their new children publishing programme under the imprint "Red Panda", on Children's Day on Thursday

Under the imprint, Westland will publish a range of books for children across genres including fiction, non-fiction, picture books, activity books and young adult fiction.

"'Red Panda' adds a new and exciting dimension to our publishing in India and, in some ways, completes the circle for us. We hope these books will be read and loved by young readers as well as by their parents and educators," said Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO, Westland.

The first release from the imprint will be "Happy Birthday, World!", a picture book for young readers (four years and above) by India's beloved children's writer Ruskin Bond in collaboration with artist Maya Ramaswamy.

It will be followed by innovative picture books on India, picture biographies that introduce children to contemporary icons of science and sport, and translations from Indian languages like Tamil writer Perumal Murugan's best-selling book "Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat".

Vidhi Bhargava, a publisher with Westland said they zeroed in on 'Red Panda' for the name, hoping it would help spread awareness about the endangered animal.

"There are less than 10,000 red pandas left in the wild in India, primarily in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Our books will carry little snippets and factoids about the endangered Indian species in an attempt to spread awareness and combine storytelling with information -- a key tenet of our publishing for children," she said.

"And, of course, it helps that the red panda is not only charismatic, it's also skilful and resilient, just like the kids we hope will read our books!" Bhargava added.

'Red Panda' books will be available online and offline starting January 2020.