The Storm Whale

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Intensely atmospheric, full of biting cold, tender detail and warm light, this is a book to cuddle up with” – The Guardian

Family is also at the heart of renowned novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s debut for children, Mama’s Sleeping Scarf (HarperCollins), with art by Joelle Avelino. Adichie became a mother in 2016 and has previously published a book of advice about how to raise a feminist daughter, Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Her new picture book features a child called Chino, who enjoys playing with the hair scarf her Mama wears to bed while Mama goes to work and she stays home with her father and grandparents. At once a peek into a day in the life of a toddler, it is also a tender act of memorial, as Adichie writes under the pseudonym Nwa Grace-James – in honour of her deceased parents, James and Grace. The recurring pattern of Mama’s vivid green scarf, decorated with bright red and blue rings and beautifully reproduced on the endsheets, poignantly evokes a sense of the circle of life.This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. I’ve always admired whales, they are so big but gentle, and they have a mystical otherworldliness about them living in their vast underwater worlds. We are privileged to be sharing this planet with them, as with all creatures, but they in particular seem so ancient and wise. I feel that humans will never understand as much about just ‘being’ as these amazing giants do – it’s a great tragedy that we choose to act as if we are superior to them as a species, when we are anything but. Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. Noi rescued the storm whale at the end of summer and he never stopped thinking of the storm whale from then. It was the start of winter and Noi’s dad decided to go fishing one last time. He left with his boat and didn’t return. The story of Noi It took about 45 minutes to get there – that’s all it takes to fly right across Iceland, which is not a very big country. Once we landed it was only a short bus-ride toHúsavík, a sailing port with a beautiful view of snow covered mountains across the bay.

Noi and his father live in a house by the sea, on a small island that doesn't seem to have many inhabitants. Because Noi's father works long days on his fishing boat and doesn't return until after dark, Noi is often on his own. One day, while exploring on the beach after a storm has hit, Noi finds a baby whale washed up on shore. With the affection and good intentions unique to a young child, Noi decides to take the whale home and look after him. Happy to have a friend who we can speak to but conscious he willl not be allowed to keep the whale, Noi tries to hide the whale from his father. But there is only so long you can keep a whale in the bathtub a secret. When his father finds the whale and explains that he must be returned to the sea, Noi learns a valuable lesson from the experience, but so does his father. Once children have become familiar with the story they could tell it to you, using the pictures as a guide. It is fine if children not yet reading use their own words for this. Talk about the story Children could make up their own story about Noi and the whale and what might happen if they meet again or you could make up one together. When children have made up their story they could write it down. See here for a special story sheet.

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From that moment Noi and his dad started spending more time together and Noi enjoyed every moment he spent with his dad. A beautiful ending to this heartwarming story. Noi and his dad spending time together.