BooksForTopics Reading for Pleasure Recommendations
Book Title: Nimesh the Adventurer
Author & Illustrator: Ranjit Singh & Mehrdokht Amini
Publisher: Lantana Publishing
Publication Date: April 2018
Most Suitable For: EYFS & KS1
Nimesh the Adventurer is a captivating new picture book from Lantana, a publishing company that creates diverse books so that all children can see themselves included in the books they are reading.
Nimesh is a small boy with a big imagination. As Nimesh walks home from school through a London suburb, he passes by ordinary places like a bakery, a park and rows of houses and shops. But Nimesh’s wonderful imagination takes him on a fanciful adventure where each place he passes becomes excitingly reimagined into pirate ships, ancient caves or exotic gardens, and the journey suddenly becomes populated by dragons, royal princesses and Indian Maharajas.
One of the interesting things about this story is that there is an unidentified (presumably adult) figure accompanying Nimesh home and this person is engaged in dialogue with Nimesh throughout the journey, asking him questions and giving him space to respond with his own imaginative interpretations. The fact that this older figure never actually features in the illustrations or descriptions helps to reinforce the point that the imaginative world that Nimesh constructs is purely a child’s one. By nature most children tend to employ their imaginations to process and experience the world around them and this is exactly what Nimesh does as he turns an everyday journey into an exciting storytelling experience of its own.
The illustrations are wonderful and engaging, using a vibrant collage style to capture a layering of the real and imaginative experiences. Each double page spread is filled with patterns and colours that portray London streets but also sing of Nimesh’s own Asian heritage. What is really clever – and will more than likely have readers flicking back and forth to look at previous pages or demand a second and third reading for the fun of spotting it – is that there are small details on each page of Nimesh’s journey home that become the spark for his next imaginative escapade, from skiwear to birthday cakes to handicraft shops.
I really enjoyed this delightful story, which celebrates the important role that imagination and storytelling play for children as they process the world around them and I highly recommend it for EYFS and KS1 to pore over again and again.
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Find ‘Nimesh the Adventurer’ on Amazon or from any good book shop or library.
Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a review copy of this text.
