Children’s author-illustrator Vaishnavi Giri on how Nature and motherhood inspire her

Vaishnavi Giri has spent most part of her life surrounded by concrete jungles. But Nature is at the core of everything she does. The 36-year-old mother of two is the brain behind Wildpaper, that offers Nature-centric early learning products for children. She was in Coimbatore recently to participate in the Kovai Bookalatta Children’s Literary Festival. At the event, Vaishnavi interacted with children through her stories, speaking about understanding wildlife and contributing to protecting it.

Vaishnavi was born and raised in Chennai, and is now settled in Bengaluru. She started Wildpaper in 2017 when she became a mother, and was looking for ways to bond with her son. “Parents are always on the lookout for tools that help them play meaningfully with their child,” she says, adding that this is how her first card game Indian Wild Safari came about. The game, through which children can learn about animal sounds, remains among Wildpaper’s best-sellers. Vaishnavi eventually created four other card games themed on space and the solar system, apart from non-tearable educational posters.

A graphic designer herself, Vaishnavi feels there is nothing Nature cannot teach. Her first board-books for children came out in 2020. Mammas in the Wild and Pappas in the Wild talk about parents in the animal kingdom. “I wanted to show children that there are so many kinds of mammas and pappas out there,” she says. She has also written the picture book Paro of the Sunderbans for Karadi Tales, that is about the journey of Paro, a mudskipper who gets lost in the vast mangroves of the Sunderbans.

When in Chennai, Vaishnavi worked as a production designer with The Little Theatre; she has also worked in the Tamil film industry — she was the art assistant for films such as Settai and Biriyani. But after she moved cities and had children, everything changed. “Once I entered their world, I started looking at things from their perspective,” she says. “I learnt so much from them; they make me want to be a better human being.”

Everything that she does — be it writing or illustrating — has her children as the inspiration. Vaishnavi is now writing a Tamil book for children apart from illustrating another title for an independent publisher.