SuitabookThe Suitcase
Chris Naylor-Ballesteros
- Reading
- Share the illustrations slowly and invite the child to notice faces, posture and changes between memory and the present. Afterwards, role-play a respectful welcome and discuss what information belongs to the traveller.
- Themes
- Welcoming someone who seems different: A strange animal arrives among other animals and is initially treated with curiosity and suspicion before a welcome is created. The narrative clearly moves towards understanding and welcome, presenting compassionate inclusion as valuable.
- Trust, evidence and privacy: The animals doubt the stranger’s claims and open his suitcase while he is sleeping to discover whether he has told the truth. The story appears to value caution and finding out more, while also showing that opening someone’s suitcase is an invasion of privacy.
- Loss and remembering home: The suitcase contains a photograph or image connected with the stranger’s former home, and the animals begin to understand what he has been through. The story gives emotional weight to what has been left behind, but the precise cause and extent of the loss remain unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Some children may want to pause around the stranger’s lost home and the animals’ decision to open his suitcase. The story also invites careful discussion of kindness without suggesting that every unfamiliar person should be trusted immediately.