The Tale of Makkhilal is a story about a fly who is the God of a village. A fly a God? That doesn’t sound right. And it is not! Only one person in the village sees through the fly’s evil ruse. Will she be able to save the village from the evil fly? Find out by reading this girl’s awesome adventure! The story encourages young readers to think about cleanliness, role models, and the difference between right and wrong.

In India, millions have to deal with problems that are caused because of unhygienic surroundings. India has the highest number of diseases arising from infections spread by houseflies. One of them is diarrhea, which has been a very common disease and is responsible for killing almost 300 children every day. The remedies to solve such problems are easy but the bigger problem is that no one takes flies as hazardous seriously.

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“The Tale Of Makkhilal”, written by Geeta Dharmarajan, with illustrations by Charbak Dipta. The poem aims to create urgent awareness by talking about these common issues and its remedies in a form that is appealing to the younger audience. Flies are commonly the culprit for spreading unwanted infections around the house, and they do it simply by flying around. This Katha book talks about important ways in which we can get rid of the fly infestation in our homes and also provides additional information regarding the spread of the disease, it also has a special section containing TADAA; some interesting, reflective exercises that encourage the kids to think, ask, discuss, act, and achieve.

The author while sharing about her motivation in writing this book, “This book is a call to action for students, teachers, parents, and everyone else, who cares about the fact that so many children lose their lives to a disease that can be prevented. It talks about ways
to safeguard children from fly-borne diseases which are not difficult. This book gives some simple and easy tips to make cleanliness a habit.”

Katha is an award-winning, “profit-for-all” voluntary organization that was founded in 1988 by Padma Shri Geeta Dharmarajan. The main aim of Katha is to create informative and entertaining illustrations for children. Katha works with 6,000 friends of Katha and a growing pool of writers, translators, and literary enthusiasts and its books help break down gender, social, cultural, and economic stereotypes and enhance the role of translation as a counter divisive tool in nation-building.