Who might you be? by Robert Henderson

Henderson, author of the highly recommended I see, I see has written and illustrated another challenging book which will keep the reader thinking and wondering. The subtitle A tale in tangrams gives a clue to the exuberant cover illustration of a young child being dragged along by a dog: they are both made from a square cut into seven pieces. Turning to the frontispiece the reader is shown a square, divided into seven different bits to form a tangram. Then the fun begins! 

Today, I am this and tomorrow I'm that.
Today, I'm a tiger! Tomorrow, a bat.
By Saturday, I will have been all of that.
So ... who might you be?

Younger readers will be carried along by the wonderful rhyming story which can be read aloud just for the pleasure of hearing the rhymes and rhythm and laughing aloud at the humour. Imagination is valued and the young person in the story can be many things, not only a tiger and a bat, but a student, a knight, a patient, a part of the galaxy and a grumpy old bear. The reader is told that there are ”plenty of me.  (And plenty of have-beens and goings-to-be.)”, a reassuring message for children as they grow and develop.

A second read gives the reader or listener the opportunity to look closely at the pictures that Henderson has made from the bits of the tangram. I particularly loved the fierce tiger with its open mouth, while my grandson was fascinated by the fangs in the vampire bat’s smile. Many illustrations which demonstrate the author’s wonderful imagination are placed against a single vibrantly coloured background. Readers will have fun predicting what the next page might hold and the final page has a tangram that can be traced and cut to see what the reader can make and who they might be. What fun to have a go at making a tangram, cutting out the seven pieces, colouring them and using their imagination to make an illustration of their own.

This book is a keeper. It celebrates the power of the imagination, challenges children to count the shapes in a tangram and perhaps make their own story. all while  supporting their sense of self.

Themes: Tangrams, Imagination, Mathematics, Counting, Identity.

Pat Pledger