CHILDREN’S books by Bookgroup are always a pleasure to read and look at. A simple but imaginative story, written in simpler words and sentences effectively illustrated in bold colours are trademark of the storybooks.

Now they have come up with Biloongra — Books for Change, a series in collaboration with some committed individuals of Pakistani origin in the US. The purpose of these books is ‘to promote child literacy efforts via kids’ books and creativity in writing’.
The books from the series under review are Biloongra’s Mischief, Lattoo Mattoo and Biloongra and Biloongra and Bichoongra. The text is in both Urdu and English, thereby promoting better learning skills in both the languages at the same time. The stories are about Biloongra, a kitten as the word ‘biloongra’ means ‘kitten’ both in Urdu and Punjabi. Biloongra lives in a household comprising three children, Noori, Saad and their baby brother Ali.

In Biloongra’s mischief, the kitten, feeling bored, goes to Ali’s room where the baby is lying wrapped in his blanket in his cot. Biloongra starts jumping around and gets the wool of the blanket caught in his paw and in no time it starts to play with the string that starts to unravel. Ali gets excited seeing the kitten’s antics and soon their joyful cries reach the father who also joins them. And while their fun and games is at its peak, with the room littered with toys and the tangled wool of the blanket, mother arrives. The writer then leaves us to come to our own conclusions of what happens next and it is not hard to imagine. Is it?

Lattoo, Mattoo and Biloongra is about the kitten and its friends, Lattoo and Mattoo, two colourful socks of Noori with whom Biloongra liked to play. When Noori wears them without showering or washing her feet after coming back from school, and goes out to play football, they get very dirty and smelly. Now it is up to Biloongra to help its friends become clean again and let mother know that Noori didn’t take a bath after coming back from school. How he does this is what you need to find out for yourself by reading it.

The simple message here about hygiene is so subtle that children will not feel they are being lectured about it, but is effectively conveyed.

Biloongra and Bichoongra is a very lively tale of the kitten and another neighbourhood cat Bichoongra. All night long they run around the neighbourhood creating a racket and being as naughty as only cats can be.

Frankly this one seems just a simple, fun tale, edging the reader to read on to find out what more mischief the two get into. If there was any message in here, I didn’t get but that does not mean I didn’t enjoy it. I actually liked it the best among the three books. And if you are just learning to read simple stories, you will enjoy these too.