PPBF – There’s Room for Everyone

We celebrated World Kindness Day this past Tuesday. In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving next Thursday, and family and friends will travel on crowded planes, trains and roads to enjoy festive meals together. With these two special days in mind, I want to share this new Perfect Picture Book.

Title: There’s Room for Everyone

Written & Illustrated By: Anahita Teymorian

Publisher/Date: Tiny Owl Publishing/2018

Suitable for Ages: 4+

Themes/Topics: kindness; sharing; hope; peace

Opening:

Before I was born, there was only a little space in my mummy’s tummy…But there was enough room for me.

Brief Synopsis: As a boy grows from a baby to old age, he reflects on how people and animals interact with our environments and concludes that with love and kindness, “there’s room for everyone”.

Links to Resources:

• Have you ever been told that there’s no room for you to sit with your friends or play a game with them? Or have you ever told someone that there’s no room for her or him? How did you feel? Think about how you could add a chair, move to a larger table, find another game piece, or otherwise find space for yourself or someone else;
• Practice being kind, by performing acts of kindness;
• Visit Teymorian’s studio and see how she makes room for all of her illustrations and stories;
• Watch the book trailer;
• In a Message at the back of the book, Teymorian explains how the idea for this book began: she was angry at the images on the television showing people fighting for a piece of land. What makes you angry? What do you do when you’re angry? Draw a picture of something that helps you feel less angry.

Why I Like this Book:

With kid-relatable text and images, Teymorian invites children to think about physical spaces, those they inhabit, like their homes, those that are public, like a library, and those in nature, like the sky, seas, and land. The unnamed narrator notes that there’s enough room in all of those spaces for whatever needs to be there – even for plentiful things, like stars and the moon, for necessary things, like books, and for large things, like giant animals. So why isn’t there enough room for everyone here?

Teymorian shows people arguing over physical spaces, like an elevator or train, or even a bathroom. Some of these arguments are squabbles over a small space, some escalate to armed conflict, and some involve beliefs about which public restroom is appropriate to use.

As the narrator points out, though, he knows a “secret” that he wants to share – and what child can resist a secret! And what parent, caregiver or teacher can resist a picture book with such a positive message: if we love and act with kindness, “there’s room for everyone”.

Photo of interior spread

An author-illustrator, Teymorian spreads her message as much through the vibrant, colorful, full-page illustrations as through the simple text. Using repeated patterns and elongated limbs, Teymorian depicts people, animals and objects fitting into a variety of spaces, discovering room for everyone.

A Note about Craft:

Teymorian utilizes first-person point-of-view that brings an immediacy to the action and that made me feel like I was with the narrator, visiting the many spaces referenced. The narrator also addresses the reader directly, imparting the book’s message in a straight-forward call to join in with “those in the know” and act with kindness and love. This call to action empowers children, I think, to be the change, to ensure that “there’s room for everyone”.

The narrator is a young child through part of the book, but he also grows up and travels the world as a sailor. Although this life-spanning story is unusual for a picture book, I think it works well here as it enables Teymorian to show aspects of life that a child generally would not experience first-hand. The narrator, depicted as a kindly, grandfather-like man at the end of the story, can then also share his secret, discovered through his many years of life and travels.

Teymorian is an Iranian illustrator-author. Read an interview with her here. See my review of Teymorian’s A Bird Like Himself.

There’s Room for Everyone is the first in Tiny Owl Publishing’s Hope in a Scary World series that is intended to “show hope and how to cope with the problems in this scary world in a very simple and subtle and childish way.”

This Perfect Picture Book entry is being added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Books list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!