Shailaja Menon works as faculty in the area of Language, Literacy and Children’s Literature at the School of Education, Azim Premji University. From 2017-2019, she led the Early Literacy Initiative at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Hyderabad, a unique initiative dedicated to raising awareness and building knowledge about the teaching and learning of early literacy in Indian contexts. Prior to that, she led a longitudinal project, Literacy Research in Indian Languages (LiRIL), which examined the teaching and learning of early language and literacy in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Shailaja is a founder-anchor of the bilingual children’s literature festival, KathaVana, that is hosted annually by Azim Premji University (2012-present). She has served on the jury for the Hindu Literature for Life awards for Children’s Literature (2016-2018), and the Big Little Book Award (2016-2018). Shailaja’s publications have appeared in international and Indian journals. She has an abiding interest in imparting a love for language, literature and literacy to children, teachers and teacher educators.