Mina and the whole wide world by Sherryl Clark

Mina is looking forward to her move into her own room. She has collected a box together: a unicorn, books, a lamp and a globe she buys at a garage sale. Her father has painted the room just for her and she has some yellow curtains to put up. But most of all she longs to be alone, in a room of her own, away from her annoying brother Georgie. But one night her parents hit her with the news. A boy is coming to stay, someone who needs shelter for a little while. She is speechless with rage. When she must take him to school and have him sit with her in the classroom, she is less than generous, forgetting all the things her parents told her, trying to ignore him. But some of her class mates are teasing and rude towards him, and she finds that she in her turn is also teased. At first she is angry but after a while, she begins to see the boy with new eyes. She learns his name and the teacher gives the class a few facts about him. Mina realises that he probably cannot understand a lot of what goes on in the classroom and after he draws an illustration of his life, she begins to feel more empathy. She collects her pocket money to buy him a set of pencils and a sketchbook and earns his name: Azzama.

With seeing him afresh she take umbrage at the rudeness of one of the boys in the class, Oliver and hits him on the nose. This brings all the tension to a point where adults must intervene and Mina is admonished for her action. In the classroom Azzami displays the pictures he has made of his life’s story and all is resolved.

A touching story of empathy that develops when Mina begins to walk in Azzami’s shoes, the story will touch many readers with the feeling that they might have been like Mina, initially unkind to someone new. The wonderful story will encourage readers to reassess their own shortcomings when welcoming new students to the class, and make them aware that many are from vastly different places in this wide world. The allusion to Mina’s globe gives this story wings, as it takes the story out of the classroom to places beyond the children’s experience.

A verse novel, the tale is completed very quickly, students stopping to read again those lines which plumb depths of meaning, enhanced by the delightful illustrations, reflecting the emotional turmoil that is going on in Mina’s head.

Themes: Refugees, Homelessness, Friendship, Empathy, Classrooms, Bullying, Resolution.

Fran Knight