Balu’s Basket (Balu ki Tokri) By Chitra Soundar. Illustrations by Uttara Sivadas, translation by Sushma Ahuja. Dual language text (English-Hindi) Tulika, Chennai, 2013, pp. 24, Rs. 135.00 What do you do when you find a big round basket by the road? You pick it up and do a whole lot of things with it. You can catch runaway chicken with it. You can put chikus in it, and bananas and mangoes, and give them all to granny at home. That is what Balu does in this brightly coloured book. Any object can have multiple uses. Any person can play a number of roles. This is what Balu’s Basket puts across to children aged 3 . Balu uses his basket for others. He helps the egg-seller, the fruit-seller, the flower-seller and the friend, and shows a caring attitude to his grandmother. Being a dual language experiment by Tulika, it has the Hindi and English texts occur in the same page, and this innovation makes the book doubly attractive. The author lives and works in London but she has captured the rustic simplicity of India well, and so has the Mumbai-based illustrator. But the price seems a bit high, for the Balus who find baskets lying by the roadside an attractive enough object to pick up and take home.   Watch Out ! Saavdhaan! By Shamim Padamsee. Illustrations by Ajanta Guhathakurta, translation by Veena Shivpuri. Dual language text (English Hindi) Tulika, Chennai, 2013, pp. 20, Rs. 95.00 This is a lovely book on wildlife. The Asiatic lion found in the Gir forest is endangered. To preserve the species, we must know it. This book introduces children to the world of lion cubs, playful but learning at every step to defend themselves against the dangers of jungle life. The lioness goes out to get some food and tells the children to take care of themselves, much the same as a single (and working) mother would do. The first thing the cubs think of doing is to play. Then they try to pounce upon a mouse fleeing to its hole while an eagle above tries to pounce upon them! With all that running and pouncing, they get thirsty. But as they go to the river, they spot the crocodile, eyeing them and smacking its lips. They encounter the thorny porcupine and the hyena. They run, roll and romp. The lioness gets back and scares the hyena away with her loud roar. The ...