The Boy Who Loved Everyone
Jane Porter and Maisie Paradise Shearring
Walker Books

Dimitri is new at nursery. “I love you,” he tells everyone and everything from his classmates to the ants and the tree in the playground.

Come the afternoon the other children are finding all this loving rather too much.

At bedtime Dimitri and his mother tell each other they’re loved, but the following morning Dimitri doesn’t want to go to school. “I told everyone I love them, and no one said it back” he tells his mum as they get ready to leave the house.

Her response is that people have different ways of showing their feelings, not everyone says ‘I love you’ in words; it can be felt and takes root in new places.

On the way, they see the old man feeding the stray cats – his way of telling the cats he loves them, Mum explains.

Further examples of non-vocal ‘I love you’s are observed in the park and in the school playground where Dimitri is still unsure of his welcome. Not for long though as his classmates invite him to join them.

A feeling of warmth begins to spread through Dimitri and by storytime it seems that everyone wants to sit with him. Dimitri is accepted at last.

Tenderness and warmth emanate from both Jane Porter’s telling and Maisie Paradise Shearring’s illustrations in this book about the power of kindness.