Can I Build Another Me?

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However, before he can bring his cloned self to life, he must embark on a quest to uncover the essence of his individuality.

is one of those so well written and profound picture books that dare to explore big, philosophical concepts in such a hilarious and inventive way, that by the time you finish reading it, notions like existentialism, individuality, selfhood or life experience are already familiar. Some kids might point out birthmarks or scars, some of them might talk about trapping their fingers, or about a special piece of jewellery they are wearing, or why they are wearing mehndi at the moment. To get what I mean, think about one of your classes: you will have a couple of children in there who can capture the attention of everyone in their class when they are telling even a quite objectively boring and uneventful anecdote, and you will have some children who, even if something truly remarkable has happened to them, haven’t got the capacity to tell it well. The boy lists everything that comes to his mind, from details about his family and particular features of his body, to many of the things he likes and dislikes. The time should be given for the children to add detail to their stories, when telling them – time for embellishment and questioning.

The way I see it, the book is a gentle introduction to introspection – when kids read it and begin to think about how they would programme their own robot, they tiptoe towards a kind of reflection on selfhood that doesn’t come instinctively to them.

Younger classes will enjoy imagining what a robot close of themselves might look, act and feel like, while older children can get philosophical about the factors that have come together to make them who they are, or even about the potential ethics of cloning oneself (I’m sure overly busy teachers may also be tempted to wish for a clone! Either way, this is a really fun focal point for classrooms and one that works best if children are given enlarged or close-up access to the illustrations. Through doing this activity, and being able to share a class full of completed little pages like this, you will almost certainly learn much more about the children in your class, and they will learn much more about each other. Often, the fact that some children are willing to share does prompt other children to be a bit more confident to reflect and share.

I shared how I have always bitten my nails, and my Dad really hates it (always has) and he threatened to put English Mustard on my fingernails if I didn’t stop. I could share – and I have just thought of this now, and this is the kind of free flowing retrieval of anecdotes that this lesson is all about – the time when I was taking a group of kids to the swimming baths with a youth charity, and I had to choose between wearing my massive glasses in the pool and looking weird, or going without, and lacking my eyesight. Teachers could use this book as an icebreaker discussion to enable a new class to get to know themselves and others, for thoughtful artwork based on the fun labelled diagrams in the book or for PSHE lessons about expressing and celebrating individuality.