Buy There’s Room for Everyone
The lovely academic Mathew Tobin wrote a stellar Amazon review of There’s Room for Everyone! This lovely picture book from Anahita Teymorian promotes kindness and empathy. Mathew is a senior lecturer in Primary English Education and Children’s Literature at Oxford Brookes. Read his fab review below!
Why are we never happy? Why are we always fighting for space and what kinds of spaces are we fighting for? Teymorian’s picture book asks the reader to consider what we want from the beautiful world that we inhabit and that if we are to live peacefully in it, then perhaps the answer is to be kinder to those around us.
The narrative itself is set in first person and, rather beautifully, follows the reflections of an old man who looks back on his life and shares his wisdom with the reader. Our journey begins with him in his mother’s womb: ”Before I was born, there was only a little space in my mummy’s tummy…but there was room enough for me.’ and follows him as he grows up with his parents; ponders upon the enormity of the night sky; celebrates the vast knowledge and space of books within a library and explores the world as a sailor returning to the reader to share one important truth, that the world is big enough for all of us if we can only appreciate what it is that we have been gifted: the capacity to care, share and look out for each other.
Teymorian’s illustrations explore the literal and metaphorical sense of space. We have characters with unimaginably long limbs, bending over the picture-plane to fit into the frame: a play then between the literal and the nonsensical. Wonderful, rounded whales grace the seas holding handbags and wheeling skateboards whilst giraffes wear pearl necklaces – these are warm images wrapped in gentle humour yet all carrying a wise message.
I particularly liked the old man in the boat returning home at the end. He smiles at a flock of birds, all huddled together yet content with the space they have. He is joined by a grinning whale and has in his boat a globe, a suitcase and his sock fluttering at the top of his mast (a link to his childhood memories). Here then is a man who has learned something about contentment, peace and harmony: what better lesson could we share with any child?
- Read a blog: There’s Room for Everyone provides Hope in a Scary World!
- Read a review by Parents in Touch: There’s Room for Everyone is positive, bold and engaging!
- Watch Tiny Owl’s publisher introduce There’s Room for Everyone!
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