WHAT WILL YOU GIVE ME?

The third title in the Curious Sameer series from India exalts its protagonist’s imagination in an effort to inspire those of its readers.

Like so many children’s-book characters before him, Sameer opens his story suffering from boredom. Amma is quick with a solution, suggesting that she give him a sheet of paper, and he then narrates how he will use it to make a paper boat in which he will sail away. “Then what will you give me?” he asks, anticipating the page turn and also introducing the query that will prompt subsequent offerings of various materials and supplies from his mother. As she provides each one, Sameer imagines the various things he can do with them. Resourceful Amma is not depicted in the painterly, brightly colored illustrations until the final page, after Sameer asks for something that “will sail like the boat” and do all of the things that his other imaginings do, too. “I have just the thing!” she responds, and they cuddle together with a storybook.

A delightful offering that not only promotes imagination, but refreshingly includes Indian characters as well.