Room for Everyone by Naaz Khan (review)

In this sprightly rhyming story, Musa and his older sister hop the daladala (a jitney-type bus) for a trip to the beach on their Zanzibar island. Along the way, the daladala picks up additional passengers from “one old man and his bike with no seat” to a herder with “two little goats” and up to “ten divers” who are “ready to go.” Though Musa initially resists the new additions to the increasingly crowded space (“This is outrageous. We can’t let them in./ We’re already smushed like sardines in a tin!”), he eventually goes with the flow and joins the other passengers who “wiggled and giggled galore” each time there’s a need to make room, and eventually the whole crowd decants itself in reverse order at the “blue crystal waters of Nungwi Beach.” The zippy anapestical rhymes are laced with dramatic emphasis (playfully signaled by the font) and touches of repetition as well as the entertaining cumulation, and there are enough details of sticky fruit juice and fish smell to make Musa’s reservations reasonable, if doomed. Mixed-media illustrations (combining acrylics, inks, graphite, and digital elements) beam with sundrenched cheer in saturated tones; portraiture is brisk yet delicate, with white linework against dark skin, and the comic streamlining of the animal draftsmanship balances with intricate patterns in clothing. This may make veteran librarians recall Sorche Nic Leodhas’ Always Room for One More (BCCB 11/65), but it’s a fresh and gorgeous outing all its own, eminently suitable to get giggles from kids doing their own complaining about close quarters. A glossary explains key terms (including Dada, unglossed in the text as meaning “older sister”), and the author notes the story’s inspiration of her own travel in Zanzibar.