What is it that sets apart a children’s book from a book for adults? Should there even be such distinctions? After all, the best children’s books also appeal to adults. But the converse, unfortunately, is not true. There are many books which adults like, that a child would not enjoy reading. And anyway, how does one decide what makes a good children’s book? The ones that teach children valuable lessons? The ones that entertain them? It could be argued that it is the book that the child reads again and again, sometimes right into adulthood, finding new things to wonder at with each reading, that can be called a truly good children’s book.These questions become rather more than merely academic ones, when one reads the beautiful, aesthetically appealing books published by Katha.   Earthsong is a book with magnificent illustrations created from artworks of clay and plasticene by Enrique Lara and Luis Garcia. The book begins with the earthsong, a lovely poem, full of imagery and music: …To the trees and all things green To the worms that work unseen …   But the poem has an unfortunate twist in its tail. It ends with: … So let’s enjoy this planet rare Let’s remember to care and share   Oh, oh. Why this moral lesson? If the song does its job well, if the pictures and words evoke the feelings the writer and the illustrators want them to evoke, the call to moral action is redundant. And if the words and visuals do not do their job, these pious lines will fall on deaf ears in any case.   The whole song appears on the first spread. Then, each line of the earthsong is marvellously illustrated, page by page, and some random and interesting facts are given about each creature or thing on the page. The randomness of these facts, and indeed of the creatures about whom these facts speak, is not a problem. But one wishes the book had been designed a little more creatively. When there are so many elements on the page, the eye does not know which way to go, leading to much exasperation. In the end, one wonders whom this book is for. Can a child really enjoy it? With such rich illustrations and evocative lines, this book could have been a collector’s item, if didacticism had not got the better of the ...