About

When Bijal Vachharajani is not reading a children’s book, she can be found writing or editing one. As Commissioning Editor at Pratham Books, she dreams up picture books. 

She’s the author of multiple children’s books, including A Cloud Called Bhura (which won the AutHer Award for best children’s book), Savi and the Memory Keeper, So You Want to Know About the Environment, and Kitten Trouble. Her picture books include That Night, PS What’s up with the climate?, What’s Neema Eating Today? and The Seed Savers. She has written essays for Rohan Chakravarty’s comic book, The Great Indian Nature Trail with Uncle Bikky, co-authored Ten Indian Champions Fighting to Save the Planet with Radha Rangarajan, and contributed short stories for two anthologies, Prankenstein and Grandma’s Tales. 

She has two upcoming books with PRH and WWF-India.

The former editor of Time Out Bengaluru, she has been a communication consultant with Fairtrade Asia Pacific and Humane Society International/India and writes about children’s literature and sustainable development as a freelance journalist. She was also a columnist with The Hindu-Mumbai. In 2019, she was recognised as a distinguished alumna at SNDT Women’s University.

She has worked as a journalist at Time Out Mumbai, where she edited the Around Town city section and the Kids section. At the same time, she worked as the South Asia Co-ordinator for 350.org, an international movement that’s working on the climate crisis. Here, she helmed events such as 10/10/10, a global day of climate action and 350 Earth, a satellite art project, and handled social media.

She has a masters in Environment Security and Peace with a specialization in Climate Change and Security at the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. 

She co-curates the Instagram handle, BAM! Books.