posted on 06 Apr 2018

Nimesh the Adventurer by Ranjit Singh illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini

When I first laid eyes on this book I knew I had to get my hands on it to do a review. The front cover is impossible to ignore – a wonderfully colourful illustration featuring a young boy clinging to the back of an almost mythical tiger with what looks like a mixed media montage of a high street as its backdrop. I also like the way the title of the book and it’s author and illustrator are drawn onto a shop frontage in cut-and-paste style fonts.

The front cover turns out to be just a taster for the goodies inside and I must give a shout-out at this point to the publisher, Lantana Books who have done such an excellent job on this production - they’ve created a book you’ll want to have as an object of desire as well as an entertaining story.

Author, Ranjit Singh has a background in finance and I suppose the brevity of his story owes something to the value he puts on keeping things tight and controlled. But what Singh has achieved is something pretty remarkable because although there are few words used they end up being the key to a huge imaginative universe.

Young Nimesh is a little boy with an enormous imagination. As he goes about his daily business he transforms the mundane into astonishing worlds of adventure. His schoolroom becomes a dragons cave, in a simple corridor he swims with sharks and the road crossing lollipop man becomes a guardsman for an Indian Maharaja. In the park he talks to a princess and the pastry shop becomes a pirate ship.

Is there nothing Nimesh can’t turn into an exciting adventure? Well, there is one place:

"And what’s this, Nimesh?

Is it a cave full of gold?

Or an emperor’s castle?

Perhaps a lush forest?

This? Don’t be silly….

This is home."

Charming as the story is, it’s taken to quite another level by the marvellous artwork  by the experienced illustrator, Mehrdokht Amini. These are some of the most impactful illustrations I’ve seen for a while and they perfectly fit the story they accompany. The colours are genuinely breath-taking and little Nimesh and his family come to life in an almost three-dimensional way.

I thought this book was going to be something a bit special when I first saw it and I was right – it’s a joy that left me wanting the story and the drawings to just go on and on.

 

Terry Potter

March 2018

( Click on any image below to view the illustrations in slide show format )