A storybook series · Grades 1 and 2
Sinbad's Shipmate
An old sea chart on the family table becomes a ship's deck, and your child sails beside Sinbad as his shipmate.
3 books
Start here
Book 1: The Island That Sneezed · Grades 1 and 2
On the table lies an old sea chart. A harbour, a coast, and a lot of empty sea. In the harbour sits a tiny ship with its sail rolled up. Their Pet leans close and blows on the wind rose in the corner. Whoosh! The tiny sail fills. Salt wind lifts the corners of the chart.
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Books in this series
- Book 1: The Island That Sneezed · Grades 1 and 2 · English · العربية
- Book 2: The Valley of Shining Stones · Grades 1 and 2 · English · العربية
- Book 3: The Giant and the Little Voices · Grades 1 and 2 · English · العربية
Meet the world
On the family table lies an old sea chart with a harbour drawn small and a lot of empty sea. The Pet blows on the wind rose, the little ship's sail fills, and the table's edge becomes a ship's rail. The harbour is Basra, about the year 800.
Sinbad, a merchant from Baghdad, needs a shipmate. He hands over a logbook and a stick of charcoal: "Draw what amazes you. And tell me what I miss." Each book is one voyage, starts and ends at the table, and can be read on its own.
The voyages come from the Thousand and One Nights, retold gently for young children. The world around them, the ships, the winds and the stars, is drawn from early Abbasid and Indian Ocean life.
Who is in it
- Sinbad: a merchant sailor in his forties, kind, loud when he laughs and honest when he is wrong. He does every dangerous job himself, and he listens.
- Bashir: the young cook, who counts every portion twice so nobody misses a meal.
- Yusuf: the ship's carpenter, grey-bearded and gentle, who hums when he is worried and whittles animals with funny proportions.
- The people of each place: they know their own world, their baskets, villages and herds, and the voyage goes better for listening to them.
- Your child's Pet: comes on every voyage and says how it feels after things happen, never before a choice.
- The hero: your child, by name, or Sabah if they would rather.
Play and make
- Keep the boat level · After The Island That Sneezed
- What do you notice? · After The Island That Sneezed
- Sink or float? · After The Island That Sneezed
- Pattern parade · After The Valley of Shining Stones
- Sound safari · After The Valley of Shining Stones
- Memory pairs · After The Valley of Shining Stones
- Ramp race · After The Giant and the Little Voices
- Kindness cards for the street · After The Giant and the Little Voices
For grown-ups
What the series practises
- Noticing details and saying what you see
- Listening to the people who know a place, and bringing what two people know together
- One true thing about the sea, the winds or the stars in every book
- Each book says which retelling it follows and lists its sources
Ways to do it
- On their own, with their Pet
- With a grown-up beside them
- With someone far away, on a call
Each book's page says what it practises and where its facts come from: