Meet the Author: Sandhya Parappukkaran

By Lauren Spender

Sandhya is a children’s author who believes owning one’s cultural identity cultivates happy, holistic people. She lives in Brisbane and works as a library assistant in a public library. She says her experience there has given her great insight into the kinds of stories children like to read. My own stories celebrate our differences and share insights into my Kerala Indian heritage. Her books are notable for their sensitive exploration of cultural differences, and have been recognized and awarded both here and internationally.

Thank you Sandhya for talking to StoryLinks

Having read all four of your books, it feels as though it should be a shared experience. Was this your intention?  

No, it wasn’t intentional, but I often say that all my books together could be read as my autobiography! The process of writing about my migrant experience is cathartic; it helps me explore the motivations behind each of the characters, which are often me, my parents, and sometimes friends and acquaintances. Essentially, my writing helps me unravel my experiences and gives me a way of looking into my world using another lens, which is liberating.

Comedian Sami Shah said reading Words That Taste Like Home to his daughter brought him to tears. How do you feel when you see the emotional effect your books are having on the parents who read them?  

The acknowledgement from Sami Shah was a heart-melting moment for me because he’s also a writer and one of my favourite comedian/radio presenters I’ve enjoyed listening to over the years. I feel many emotions stir inside me when parents, teachers or any readers share their experience reading my books. Telling me that it has invoked emotions like nostalgia, longing, pride and joy in them and that they feel seen. Their words empower me, knowing that my story is also their story, gives me a sense of solidarity.

In Words That Taste Like Home, as Rohan learns a new language in a new country, he fears losing his native language.  You use a few Malayalam words in your books. Is the language a large part of your storytelling, and would you like to incorporate more of your native language into your writing? 

Yes, I love to use Malayalam words in my stories if I can. I have Malayalam words in my stories – Muthassi and Ammama mean grandma, and Amma means mother. I’ve just started listening to A Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese – a novel set in Kerala. I love the way the author nonchalantly uses Malayalam words to describe things; for example, in one of the early chapters, he says thorthu rather than towel without the need to explain it at all. Every time I hear a Malayalam word in this novel, I’m delighted! I also love seeing bilingual books like Be Careful Xiao Xing by Alice Pung and Sher Rill Ng, (reviewed in StoryLinks by Sandhya), and seeing French words in Gus Gordon’s picture book Finding Francois. I think we must cling to all languages we know and use them in clever and exciting ways so that they stay alive.

(Words That Tast Like Home is a 2025 Children’s Book Council of Australia – Notable book)

In The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, the character has quite an impressive name, ‘Zimdalamashkermishkada’. Was the name inspired by someone or something? 

Thank you! In my first draft of The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, I used my friend Samyuktha’s name. I got some feedback from my critique group (via my writer’s group Write Links) that I should use a longer name. So, I decided to make the name up. I took some words that I thought sounded interesting – Zim, mash, mish… and mixed them around until I came up with Zimdalamashkermishkada. One of my favourite parts of reading this story to children is when I invite them to say his name with me at the end, and we all say it out loud.

Anyone with a name that might be considered hard to pronounce will resonate with the struggles found in The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name. When you first came to Australia, was this something you experienced regularly?

My earliest memories of people making light jokes about our surname or being incredulous at having to try and pronounce it are from the time we first came to Australia. I remember at get-togethers this was talked about often, and some of our friends even went as far as anglicising their names to make it easier for others. My dad was adamant that we’d never change our names. I felt proud of my dad and our surname, while simultaneously feeling anxious whenever someone couldn’t pronounce it. Now I know that changing your name to make others feel more comfortable can result in the loss of one’s identity. And yes, this is something I experience regularly, but nowadays I deal with it more confidently. Since writing The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, I’ve become more empowered to say, yes, this is my name, and this is how you say it.

(The Boy Who Tried To Shrink His Name: Winner of the 2022 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Award for New Illustrator; Finalist – 2022 QLD Premier’s Literary Award; 2023 Outstanding International Book for USBBY (United States Board on Books for Young People)

In Amma’s Sari, you make clever use of eyebrows using figurative language. What’s your process for turning very real cultural anxieties into creative and engaging metaphors for young children? 

Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to show the reader what Shreya was seeing and experiencing when she’s out walking with her amma. I like to observe people’s facial expressions; it’s fascinating what your facial muscles can convey with the tiniest of movements. When you’re dealing with people responding to the part of you that’s different, often it’s not loud, there may be no words but there is a shift in the mood – tension in the air, nostrils flaring, stiffening of shoulders, lips pursed a little too tightly – whatever it is, as the person on the receiving end you do feel it. I focused on the eyebrows in this story because they are very expressive things, and I think they can hold their own in a stage show. I thought a child would easily understand the changing shapes of the eyebrows and what that might mean. When it comes to writing metaphors, I usually close my eyes, imagine the scene at hand, feel the emotions and try to think of things it reminds me of.

(Amma’s Sari: Finalist 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Award – Patricia Wrightson prize for children’s literature; Long listed – 2023 Children’s Book Council of Australia – Notable book)

Food brings people together in Stay for Dinner. Is food and cooking an important part of your life?

 Yes, food and cooking are important parts of my life. I’m from Kerala, a state in the south of India, and our food is very different to what you see on offer at regular Indian restaurants. I got to sample Kerala cuisine firsthand when I was 10 and went to live there for some years. That’s what I like to cook at home, although I’m still learning how to make the myriad of dishes. I particularly love the variety of breakfast dishes present in our cuisine.

Stay For Dinner also interweaves different cultural dining experiences. Being that you were once a food technologist, do you have any memorable (good or bad) dining experiences you can share? 

My memories go back to living in Kerala. The feast day of Saint Sebastian is a huge day of festivities where all our relatives gather, and lots of food is prepared on this day. Onam is another festival we celebrate, where every household prepares and eats Sadhya (this is the meal featured in my book Stay for Dinner). The Onam Sadhya is always purely vegetarian, while other feasts include meat and fish. Onam is very special because we dress up in the traditional Onam colours, which are cream and gold with splashes of other vibrant colours. As part of all the feasts, there is always some sweet dish for dessert, mainly payasam, which is so yummy and wholesome.

(Stay for Dinner:Winner 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Award – Multicultural NSW Award, Long listed – 2024 Children’s Book Council of Australia – Notable book.)

Michelle Pereira encapsulates the richness of your culture in her illustrations, and I love how each book has a distinct colour palette. How much input did you have in the imagery for the books?

No input at all! I love all the colour palettes Michelle chose for each book, too.  Michelle is brilliant at interpreting the story from my words. She infuses her images with emotion and creates a visual treat that strengthens and extends the text. I only have minimal illustration notes in my manuscript. For every book we’ve worked on, I get to see the initial sketched storyboard and then, as the colouring is progressing, I get to see the work again. At each stage, my lovely publisher welcomes comments from me. I might have some minor suggestions, but Michelle’s work has always gone above and beyond my wildest expectations. I love it when children notice Michelle’s visual storytelling, like the string transforming into a bird in The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name or the fading images which coincide with Rohan’s loss of language in Words That Taste Like Home. One of my favourite conversations was with a student during a school visit, we were discussing the page in Amma’s Sari where the saris burst out after Shreya tried to hide them. The student commented that she thought the saris were placed on the page in the shape of a path, creating a way for Shreya to get closer to Amma and understand her better. I thought that was a brilliant moment of visual interpretation.

Are you working on any new books at the moment?

Yes. I’m always working on one story or another. Sometimes I take ideas out of my idea book and see if I can develop them into a story. Other times, I might get an idea and feel compelled to write it out immediately and see where it goes. Right now, I have a story called Dinosaur Stomp which is the text for the biennial ‘Little Hare Illustration Prize’ – a competition (competition is now closed) run by my publisher, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, for emerging illustrators – the winner will get to create a book with my publisher, Pooja Desai and me, under the imprint ‘Little Hare Books’. I love being part of this project because the competition provides a wonderful opportunity for an emerging artist! And I have just received confirmation that another book is in the pipeline for me and Michelle, but I can’t reveal anything right now!

Thank you again for talking to StoryLinks and we are all looking forward to reading your next story.

Sandhya Parappukkaran

Michelle Pereira