Teo, the Special Painter, loves to draw. His mom and dad are painters. But his right hand is missing fingers, how will he manage to paint? Find out how Teo solves this problem in a unique way and makes beautiful pictures.
This beautifully illustrated book from Room to Read helps discuss differences, disabilities, and how to overcome them.
Download or read online the full free picture book, A Special Painter on the buttons below the post.
Author: Dương Ngọc Tú Quỳnh, Illustrators: Nguyễn Minh Hải,
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If you are interested in books about differences, disabilities, or diversity, see our Differences and Diversity category.
Text from The Special Painter
Teo loves to draw! Teo’s mom is a painter. Teo’s dad is an art teacher.
Teo’s right hand is missing fingers, but he dreams of being a painter and wants to draw beautiful pictures.
Teo’s mom enrols him in a class at the children’s centre.
The teacher asks the class to draw a zoo.
The students are excited.
Na wants to paint peacocks.
Ti loves drawing cats.
Bin wants to draw a polar bear.
Hoa is curious. “Which one do you want to draw?” she asks Teo.
“I want to draw all of them!” says Teo.
Ti is sharpening pencils. “Will you use the paint brushes or the pencils?” he asks.
“I will use both,” says Teo.
Bin takes out the colour box and asks, “will you draw with your left hand?”
Teo is confused. “I will try to draw with both hands.”
Na blends the colours.
“Which colours will you use?” she asks.
“I will use all of them!” says Teo happily.
But Teo cannot hold a brush in his right hand because he does not have fingers.
It keeps slipping off.
Teo tries to draw a chicken first.
But soon, his hand is splattered with colours
Teo has an idea!
Teo feels like giving up.
Suddenly, he spots a funny shape on his palm.
The spot on his hand looks like a chick!
Teo paints his hand brown. He giggles.
“Now I will draw with my hand,” he says.
Teo places his hand
on the corner of the paper.
He smiles and adds a few brown spots.
Look, it’s a cute puppy!
Teo makes two more yellow marks with his hand and his arm.
Then he adds orange dots to them.
Next, Teo paints his foot brown and steps on the paper.
He draws a few lines.
How cool! An adorable bear appears.
Teo continues to paint
his heels blue and pink,
and stamps them on the page.
A few lines more, and colourful birds appear on the paper.
“The train that takes us around the zoo is missing,” says Teo.
“Does anyone want to draw it with me?”
This is the coolest class ever!
Together the kids paint a wonderful picture.
<End of text from A Special Painter>
Download or read online the full free picture book, A Special Painter on the buttons below the post.
See more books about differences and diversity below
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What an absolute treasure. I love this story and this site. I have searched for days to find stories like this that teaches compassion and endurance. Thank you so much.
It is beautiful.Illustration is amazing and there is a moral in the story.
I will use it with my students since we are learning the present simple and the story seems perfect to practice it.Thank you for sharing.
I am an English teacher in the Dominican Republic, and I want my students to feel special reading books by themselves.
That’s awesome 🙂 we hope we can help them feel special too! If they leave a comment here about a book they’ve read independently and enjoyed with a question or personal note, we will respond, how will that make them feel?
I loved it. Teaching kids we can all make it in different ways is the way!
I’m so glad you like it and hope you share with your students, I enjoyed it too, it was very sweet.