Sailaja Joshi of Mango and Marigold Press Brings Storytime to the Garden!
We were so excited to welcome Sai to the Growing Center to record her sharing two of her wonderful books from her publishing company, Mango and Marigold with our friends and neighbors, as well as some of our partners who work with children and families in Somerville.
The story of Mango and Marigold Press starts with its founder, Sailaja. While waiting for the birth of her first child she searched for books about her Indian culture. She found very few, and in the ones she did find, the representation was often inappropriate or insensitive. She knew there was magic for kids in being able to see themselves represented on the page, in the extraordinary or the ordinary, and from that understanding her company was born.
Mango and Marigold Press is an award-winning independent publishing house that shares the sweet and savory stories of the South Asian experience and ensures that all children can see themselves as the heroes of their own stories, realizing anything is possible.
Sai read to us from Finding Om, a story by Rashmi Bismark with pictures by Morgan Huff, and Bindiya in India, by Monique Chheda, MD, illustrated by Debasmita Dasgupta.
To watch the delightful readings that Sai did, please head to our Virtual Programming page, here.
And to learn more out more about Mango and Marigold Press, visit their website.
Thank you to the Somerville Health Foundation for supporting the Growing Center’s work to continue to create equitable and accessible experiences in nature and to support children’s mental health. Positive representation of all children is so important. Also, thank you to Liza Kitchell, of the Friends of the Community Growing Center, for support with making and editing these videos.
Paula Jordan
Children in Nature Initiative Coordinator
This is such a lovely initiative—bringing diverse stories and representation into community gardens is so important. It’s inspiring to see publishers like Mango and Marigold creating those meaningful spaces for kids. For more on thoughtful branding and visual storytelling, you might enjoy this logo analysis.
This sounds like a wonderful initiative! Positive representation in children's books is so important, and it's great to see the Growing Center supporting local authors and families. For anyone looking to create large classroom displays or wall art from these stories, rasterbator is a handy free tool to print any image as a multi-page poster.
What a wonderful initiative! It is so important for children to see themselves represented in stories, and the garden provides such a beautiful, natural backdrop for these readings. I also noticed the mention of making and editing these videos for your Virtual Programming page. For anyone working on community video projects who needs to seamlessly remove backgrounds or create clean overlays, using an AI tool to export alpha is incredibly helpful for producing professional transparent WebM or ProRes files. Thank you for sharing these important cultural stories and making them accessible to the wider community!
What a thoughtful celebration of stories that let children see their own cultures and everyday experiences reflected on the page. The garden setting sounds like a wonderful place for this kind of shared reading; creative tools like the Picture to Drawing website could also be a fun way for young readers to respond visually to the stories.
This is such a lovely initiative—bringing storytime to the garden and celebrating meaningful cultural representation for kids. It’s inspiring to see how books like these can help children feel seen and connected. If you enjoy exploring creative and purposeful resources, you might also like the [career test, ATS resume checker](https://aicareertest.work/) to help you find your own next chapter.