So, here at JaJaJa we have a fresh new look and website design, just in time for the launch of our new book ‘Ranvir Cannot Hear’.

Ranvir is a little elephant who goes on a journey over the plains of India in search of his hearing and meets some great friends along the way. They tell him how even when you can’t do what’s expected of you, there may be something else that you CAN do. The message we wanted to portray was one of empowerment and inclusion and we are incredibly proud of this beautifully illustrated story. It has taken a long time to get it to where we wanted it to be, but we didn’t want to rush it. This book could mean so much to so many little people and we hope it will make them feel exactly how we do when we read it. We were so excited to join forces with such a great illustrator, Shermain Philip who knew exactly what was needed when creating the hazy, sun drenched, pictures of India.

Just like our other JaJaJa books that have the new vocabulary in the back, we have included the BSL and ASL finger spelling alphabets on the back page, to help with learning a new language!

The inspiration for this book came from many angles. Firstly a family member, who had travelled to India working with the Hear the World foundation, got back to us with stories of the Rangammal School for children with a hearing impairment. She told us how happy the children were and how excited they were to meet her. The photos of these happy, energetic, beautiful children just got to us. The school, which is run by the Sylvia Wright Trust, depends on donations every year to keep running and so we decided to write a book where 10p of every unit sold can go towards their funds. We had also written this story last year and a friend who works with families with hearing impaired children read it and loved it. She told us we must go ahead and publish it…. so we did!

In our blogs, we want to give you some insight into how the journey of publishing this book was different from before and if you are a first time author who is venturing into the realms of publishing, this may help you. So watch this space….