An Umbrella With White Butterflies by Farhad Hassanzadeh, illustrated by Ghazaleh Bigdelou is a story about how four children unknowingly impact one another on the eve of the new year.
Today as I write this, it’s World Read Aloud Day, a celebration of reading with children all over the world. This book of interconnection, An Umbrella with White Butterflies, might be being read in Iran, China, Korea, and Spain, but it isn’t published in English yet. Tuti Books at Fatemi Publishing in Tehran has sent me a PDF of the book in English translated by Caroline Croskery. Thank you, Tuti Books! So now I can tell you more about the book, and maybe be part of a web that leads to this beautiful book coming in English for next World Read Aloud Day.
Children, unknown to each other, are each a player in a sequence of events that help each of them achieve what they most want for the new year celebration. The story begins in a barber shop where a boy, Ardalan, needs a hair cut and he has only so much time to get it before the clock strikes the hour of the new year. “But the barber works on his own time.” Of course. This story turns on time. And on Ghazaleh Bigdelou’s threads through the story – the cat, the butterfly, the bowls of little orange goldfish for new year, the umbrella. The boy Ardalan has to wait!
Then comes Atousa, in tears, waiting for her dress from the dressmaker. She has waited so long. Then come Maryam and Ali, waiting to sell their flowers in the market for the new year. At a certain moment, they happen upon Atousa, still waiting for her dress.
Ali helps Atousa. Atousa gets her dress. The clock is ticking for the dressmaker who sends Atousa to the barber to retrieve her husband…Who was sitting in the barber’s chair and must leave, fast! The boy, Ardalan, gets his turn before the clock strikes the new year.
The children, strangers to one another, are now wild with their own excitement for the new year. A moment in time, a couple of words exchanged, an umbrella with white butterflies, this is a book about how everything we do touches another.
Hassanzadeh was shortlisted for the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award for the life-time work of a children’s book writer, making him one of the top five children’s book writers in the world.
Just wonderful … and this also every year reminds me of Tomas and the library lady and how he grew up to be a part of Read aloud day.
Thank you for changing!
All’s well. My blog is reaching out again and it found you. You can share any one.