Nine-year-olds Churki and Burki are twins who lead a happy, busy life in their village with their grandmother. They spend the day fishing in the river, driving the parrots from the corn field, gathering fruits, and enjoying the outdoors, yet it is nightfall they excitedly await for story-telling time to begin. Both a fable and a recounting of a charmed childhood, The Pumpkin Girls captures the experience of growing up as girls in a tribal village in central India. Narrated and illustrated by Durga Bai, the well-known Gond artist, this evocative book straddles the worlds of memory and imagination.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2010 by Tara Books .

Durga Bai is a young tribal artist from the Gond tradition of central India. Gond is a ritual and functional art style with distinctive decorative elements, mostly painted on walls of houses, using natural colours. Durga constantly re-works and pushes the borders of the form to create art that sparkles with a distinctive energy.