An Italian friend of mine from Cambridge came over to see Egypt, and as expected, he brought not only a very thoughtful, but a very intelligent gift. Italian picturebooks! Two were wordless and one will require the help of a translator. Obviously, once I’d unwrapped them the morning of my birthday (I’d given my word I wouldn’t unwrap it before), I immediately started reading them on the bus on the way to school.
I was just as excited as I first was when I’d been introduced to Aaron Becker’s ‘Journey’, and I was particularly pleased with all the detail in the illustrations and the feelings they produced in me.
That day, I happened to be proctoring an exam, and two of my students finished early. Handing them each a wordless picturebook, I was pleasantly surprised to walk by a few minutes later to see one of them scribbling in it with his pencil. And, I think we can agree, it only made the gift far more priceless:
