Started With Nothing — 6 Illustrated Biographies for Ages 8–14 | English

Other books tell a child to be rich. These tell a child to be useful.

Six Indians. Every one of them started with almost nothing, and every one of them built something a child can still see or use today — a rocket programme, a notebook of mathematics nobody could explain, a dairy that feeds a country, a dam.

Six separate books, not one thick anthology. A child can finish one and pick up the next.

The six, and what each cover says

• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam — He sold newspapers. Then he built rockets.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan — No degree. No teacher. Just notebooks.
• Kalpana Chawla — From a small town in Haryana to orbit.
• C.V. Raman — He asked why the sea is blue.
• Verghese Kurien — He gave India its milk.
• M. Visvesvaraya — He taught a river where to go.

If this sounds like your child

• Eight to fourteen. Old enough to read alone, young enough that who they admire is still being decided.
• The one who feels behind. Ramanujan had no degree and no teacher. That book is written for that child.
• The one who asks why. Raman asked why the sea is blue, and nobody told him to stop asking.

How they are written

Every one of the six is a real person, and the books are written that way. No invented dialogue and no imagined thoughts — if nobody recorded it, it is not in the book. Where somebody died, it is said plainly, once, and the book ends on what continued afterwards rather than on the ending.

What this is not

• It is not about getting rich.
• It is not a school textbook, and there is no exam at the end.
• It is not one book with six chapters — it is six books.

Delivery

Delivered across India. Online payment carries a discount.

Please note — these books are being printed now. Dispatch is approximately 4 to 6 weeks from the date of your order.