Elizabeth Keyton aka Elikutty’s debut picture book spotlights Malayalam vowels

Language expert Elizabeth Keyton’s debut picture book is aimed at introducing children to Malayalam vowels in a fun and engaging manner. Davina Finds Her Vowels

For years now, Elizabeth Keyton — popularly known as @eli.kutty on Instagram — has been using social media to not just learn Malayalam, but teach the language via interactive, creative learning tools. One such tool is her debut picture book, Davina Finds Her Vowels (AdiDev Press), that aims to introduce children to Malayalam vowels.

The book, says Eliza (as she is fondly known), was actually created in 2018 when she was living in Dubai. “My best friend, a Tamil, gave birth to her daughter, Davina. Her husband is Malayalee, but he grew up in Tamil Nadu. As a result, she had a lot of resources to learn Tamil, but I wanted to make something in Malayalam for Davina’s first birthday,” says the language expert who currently works with newcomer migrant students in Chicago. Eliza handmade the book, “drawing my own simple illustrations so that she could explore Kerala through her own eyes”. “My friend loved it and pushed me to make it into a real book,” she shares. 

The picture book takes young readers on Davina’s journey through Kerala’s fields lined with banana trees, local markets, and on buses, with each page teaching a set of vowels. “I enjoyed setting the scenes. The rhyme and narration was incredibly fun to expand on, and it felt wonderful alongside Kohan Kolam’s (the creative name of painter and illustrator Gurmeet Singh) illustrations,” she says. 

This is Gurmeet’s first Malayalam-centric book too, and he says combing through visuals of Kerala’s people, local culture, and watching Malayalam movies was done for the book’s research. “Words leave visual impressions, even where words do not describe it explicitly. The impression I had of Davina was of an impish, highly energetic, unself-aware little girl. I tried to convey this through things such as her always unruly hair, frolicking poses, and Elikutty’s mischievous expressions,” says Gurmeet, who adds that the process was creatively intense. “The marketplace design took two weeks just to colour!”

Eliza adds that the first version of the book took a month of writing, illustrating, and laminating the pages. “I’m a language teacher, and I’ve worked with children for many years, so I had the idea to make the introduction to the alphabet to be fun, engaging, and personalised. I started sending the draft to various publishers in 2020, and it took a lot of persistence and a few good friends to finally connect me with AdiDev. Davina just turned seven, so it’s wild to see how the journey to publication is not quite as straightforward as one may imagine,” adds the author.

Why did Eliza choose the picture book format for Davina Finds Her Vowels? “Picture books are wonderful tools to learn language because it opens up the context for children and sets a stage for them to see a relevance in what they are learning. Many parents want their kids to connect with their heritage language, but often fall into less engaging methods of memorisation, repetition, and frustrating corrections,” she says, “Children are naturally curious and want to explore new ideas, and using picture books guides their imagination and also makes it feel less forced as rote learning.” 

Hoping the book resonates with children, Eliza has written drafts for future books including all the Malayalam alphabet. “Each book has a theme related to Kerala, from the biodiversity of the forests of Thrissur, to the snacks and sweets at neighbourhood chaaya shops. In total, there would be about seven or eight books, each focussing on a certain cluster of sounds from the Malayalam language,” Eliza says, adding that she has also completed the draft of a Malayalam coursebook for adult beginners. “I’ve structured it to be as engaging and approachable as international texts for learning English, Spanish, etc. I’m hoping that I can get this book to shelves as Malayalam has a lack of updated, engaging materials. I also have free online classes where I use the material I’ve developed for this coursebook.”