Sailaja Joshi, a young Indian mother from Boston, has launched “Bharat Babies,” a series of children’s books that focuses on India’s rich heritage. The books are aimed at Indian-American parents.

Joshi’s goal is to fill a market void for “developmentally and culturally appropriate” books on Indian culture and religion for young children, said The Indian Diaspora. The first such book, Hanuman and the Orange Su”, will be released in May.

Joshi said most of the culturally relevant books on the market are not appropriate for toddlers. “They could not hold the attention of two-, three- or four-year-olds. And some were Anglicized stories that were simply inaccurate. My husband and I are both academics and love books, so we knew that Indian heritage books would be important for our child,” Joshi told The Indian Diaspora.

The main character of her first book is a little girl named Harini (with brown skin and black hair) who is listening to the stories of “Hanuman Dada” from her mother for the first time as they work together preparing food.

The books are for bi-cultural children. Hence the characters eat both Indian and American food and speak a mixture of their native language and English. It was important to Joshi that children identify with the characters.

Joshi’s company plans to initiate a Kickstarter-like campaign to generate money for its other literary projects this year. “For example, the Bharat Babies website will have a blurb about a book online, with some cover art and ask for funding through a pre-order campaign, which helps pay for the cost of printing the book,” Joshi said.

Joshi attained her goal of raising funds for “Hanuman” within four days, said The Indian Diaspora. She said the company is looking for “brick and mortar partners” to sell her books.

Joshi’s parents emigrated from Andhra Pradesh in the 1980s and settled south of Boston. As a child, she felt culturally isolated. “I saw a lack of diversity when I was growing up. I was the only Indian in school and we were probably the only Indian family in our city.”

Joshi has spoken to educators in Boston and New York City about diversifying the types of literature offered in schools. Her company will soon reach out to other school districts, said The Indian Diaspora.

Over the next several years, Joshi plans to publish other books that focus on Indian history, holidays and religions like Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Buddhism. Next year, she plans to launch a biographical series on Gandhi and well known Indian women.