How special stories and design are making reading inclusive

Earlier this year I picked up Menaka Raman’s How to Win an Election. The fact that ADHD is not the crux of the book, it’s just incidental, came from my son, who has a ‘what’s the big deal about it’ attitude," says the Bengaluru-based author. It is only in her bio that you come across the mention of “nonspeaking" and that elicits a lot of questions among children and adults, and starts them on a journey towards understanding Sowmyanarayan better. In October, HarperCollins India announced a partnership with Barrington Stoke, a children’s book publisher in Edinburgh, one of the few specialists in dyslexia-friendly books for the past 25 years. “Of course, you have audio books now, but why should kids miss out on the joy of holding a physical book," says Raman.