Once I suggested my friend who was fatigued from office work to take a short break and start again when feeling fresh. She replied that she can’t even think of sitting idle, doing nothing. Nothing — ‘doing nothing’, ‘saying nothing’, ‘thinking nothing’ — is something that scares people off, for some it is something inconceivable. But this nothingness, whether of space or time, is something interesting and opens doors to new and interesting experiences and insights.

My first encounter with this theory was from a book on Indian philosophy where the writer quoted some ancient Indian philosopher to tell about the curious notion of nothingness. According to him, all human activity is made of a series of actions separated by a gap or an interval. In other words, our actions are never continuous. For example, between breathing in and breathing out, there is a small interval when we are not breathing. Likewise, between two words and also between two sentences there is a gap, without which there would be no comprehension. After finishing our food, we do not simply get up and leave; instead, we take some time to rise in a relaxed manner. The idea of the writer was to stretch this gap to as much length as possible because in that state of nothingness one can find bliss.

The book All About Nothing by Elizabeth Rusch and illustrated by Elizabeth Goss is a courageous attempt to introduce this deep philosophical notion of emptiness or nothingness to young readers in a way they may comprehend. They do it through terse sentences and plenty of large pictures — all of them illustrating the concept clearly. They promise that the book would make the readers see the world in a different way, and they are not wrong. Just to give you a hint, among the various examples that the authors present, you will find the space between people in a crowd and the space between leaves and branches of a tree. In most of the cases, the space itself forms interesting pattern and image, which is perceptible though not tangible. Just by a simple change in perspective, our comprehension of the outside world expands manifold as we are not only appreciating the distinct and obvious objects around us — something we have been doing till now — but also appreciating the various patterns and forms which simply ‘do not exist’ or rather we had been ignoring till now. If you are still having difficulty understanding what am I talking about then let me illustrate the idea with another example. In your school homework you must have made several artworks by cutting and pasting. You took a colour paper, cut out a pattern and pasted it on your drawing book or plain white drawing sheet. You used several colour papers and the result was an artwork in collage. Now, take a look at the leftover portions of the colour paper. Note the emptiness in the portion where you cut your piece. Although there is emptiness, there is also a definite form.

The success of the book will depend on the parent or the teacher who will read and explain the book to the child. As in the case of several other books that I have reviewed, here also a lot depends on the storytelling skills of the elder reader. The book opens doors to imagination and new ideas and is certainly unique in its theme and content. The only negative comment I have is regarding the book cover which could have been more colourful and interesting.

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Title: All About Nothing
Author: Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Elizabeth Goss
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S.
Publication Date: 4 April, 2023
Print Length: 32 pages
Suitable for Age: 4 – 8 years
Price (Kindle): $9.99
Price (Hardcover): $14.52
My Rating:
What Does It Mean?