Penguin Random House India acquires Duckbill Books children's publishing division

Penguin Random House India has acquired the book-publishing assets of Duckbill Books that includes titles and its backlist of non-fiction and fiction books across a broad range of categories.

"The Duckbill brand will be published within Penguin Random House India's children's publishing group division," Penguin Random House (PRH) announced Friday.

Run by publisher Sayoni Basu and leading children's writer Anushka Ravishankar, Duckbill Books has been independently publishing books and digital products for children and teens since 2012.

With this development, it will be Penguin Random House India's second exclusive imprint to publish books for children, besides Puffin.

"We have had seven exciting years discovering new authors and experimenting with different kinds of books, but we have felt the challenges of being a very small house selling books in a very large world.

"With Penguin Random House India's amazing sales and marketing network, we hope Duckbill books will reach many new readers," Ravishankar and Basu said in a statement.

Some of Duckbill's bestselling titles include "Moin and the Monster" by Anushka Ravishankar, "Queen of Ice" by Devika Rangachari, "Timmi in Tangles" by Shals Mahajan, "Year of the Weeds" by Siddhartha Sarma and "Akbar and the Tricky Traitor" by Natasha Sharma.

"We are so excited to bring in Duckbill into the Penguin Random House India family. It is a true value add of an acquisition and we are looking forward to taking the wonderful world of storytelling that Duckbill team has built to a wider audience.

"Children's publishing is one of our biggest assets, and as a company we would like to bring in good literary work that establishes new readers, generation after generation," said Gaurav Shrinagesh, CEO, Penguin Random House India and SEA.

Duckbill's publisher and co-founder Basu will come on board the company as Consulting Editor and will continue publishing works with Sohini Mitra, who currently heads the children and young adult publishing program for Penguin.

"Through its books, Duckbill has fearlessly addressed many topics that are relevant for this day and age and the recognition that they have received is supremely well deserved.

"We welcome their talented pool of authors, series and titles to our catalogue and look forward to bringing more path-breaking work to the fore," Mitra said.