Can I Build Another Me?

Product Information

Bursting with imaginative illustrations, this thought-provoking book offers an engaging and enjoyable experience that not only sparks discussion but also serves as an ideal catalyst for exploring the concept of each person’s distinct uniqueness. The time should be given for the children to add detail to their stories, when telling them – time for embellishment and questioning. To get what I mean, think about one of your classes: you will have a couple of children in there who can capture the attention of everyone in their class when they are telling even a quite objectively boring and uneventful anecdote, and you will have some children who, even if something truly remarkable has happened to them, haven’t got the capacity to tell it well. He realizes the diversity of the feelings he has, the intensity of the dreams he grows, the joy of interacting with different people and the secrecy of some of his most intimate thoughts.

I cannot remember exactly who first mentioned this book on Twitter a few years ago, but to whoever it was, I am eternally grateful. follows a child’s hilarious, wildly inventive train of thought as he decides to make a clone of himself – and starts to ponder what makes him HIM.

The boy lists everything that comes to his mind, from details about his family and particular features of his body, to many of the things he likes and dislikes. follows a child’s hilarious, wildly inventive train of thought following the death of his grandfather and the discovery of his journal, in which his grandfather had jotted his thoughts about life after death and the ideal heaven. follows a child's hilarious, wildly inventive train of thought as he decides to make a clone of himself - and starts to ponder what makes him HIM. However, before he can bring his cloned self to life, he must embark on a quest to uncover the essence of his individuality.

I am interrogating the role of anecdotes in the classroom at the minute – I guess this is my little teaching preoccupation – and this book has a great scope for it. Often, the fact that some children are willing to share does prompt other children to be a bit more confident to reflect and share. As you see, the simple idea of it is that different body parts are labelled and different facts or stories are linked to each. Either way, this is a really fun focal point for classrooms and one that works best if children are given enlarged or close-up access to the illustrations. Each page shows something different, such as his Likes and Dislikes and the Things I Can and Can’t Do.I could share about how when I was in school, I saw somebody get bullied for wearing glasses, so when I was told that I needed glasses, I felt super anxious and would take them off in the corridor. I leave traces of me”, Kevin admits, thinking of how his parents identify his mess or how his peers recognize his belongings. Distrusting the apple’s convincing appearance, the child’s imagination spirals upwards and outwards into a madcap fantasy world – maybe it’s a star from outer space with tiny aliens on board? I shared how I have always bitten my nails, and my Dad really hates it (always has) and he threatened to put English Mustard on my fingernails if I didn’t stop. In telling these stories, what you are needing to do yourself, and what you are encouraging in the kids, is the ability to spin a good yarn – to speak humorously or with pathos, to be able to pre-empt the reactions it might get and to withhold certain information until the very end, to be able to identify the key parts of the ‘plot’ and to tell it appropriately.