Books

A charming Ladakhi picture book gently explores Pallas’ cats, family bonds, and fragile mountain ecosystems, planting seeds of empathy and ecological awareness in young readers

XHigh up in a little Ladakhi village, a young boy named Otsal spies three fluffy kittens and their stern-looking mother in the family storeroom. “Amalele, amalele,” he says to himself in confusion, because these wild animals are not exactly familiar cats—they are, his elder brother Lobzang later informs him, “taksram”, “riblik”, or the “otter of the hills”. And the cats intervene to define themselves too: “Pallas’ cats. That’s us… We agree, that’s a rather strange name to have, one with an apostrophe (’) as if we belong to someone named Pallas.” Because actually they are named after the Prussian zoologist Pe

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