The Wonder
Faye Hanson
Templar Publishing
If you want a beautiful book and one that celebrates the imagination, then most definitely The Wonder is for you; indeed I can’t imagine many people who would say no to either of those things.
I have a good friend in Rajasthan, India, an artist, who has this written large on the wall of his studio: “ Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Picasso. Essentially this quote is the key to Faye Hanson’s fantastic book.
The story follows one small duffle-coated boy who finds something to wonder about in everything he sees. He sets out for school through the park, onto the bus, then across the road with the lollipop lady

and into the school building.
(Children want to know why such a little boy is going to school alone and why he wears his coat in science.) I wonder …
At every stage he encounters adults who, seemingly, want to stifle his imagination, none more that his ‘form teacher’ who barks, “No daydreaming today” in greeting and his science teacher who isn’t interested in his question about the stars (What kind of school is this? one wonders). Joy of joys though, his art teacher has written up on a board in the art room, that very Picasso quote I mentioned and she clearly believes what it says. Here in her room, the boy is encouraged to use his imagination and truly he does as his daydreams take flight across the, initially daunting, large blank page in front of him.
It’s at this point in the story that the predominantly sepia tones of the illustrations give way to glorious, coloured, intricately detailed flights of fancy. There’s a park scene with amazing subterranean animal homes among the tree roots…

A skyscape with cloud makers creating incredible dreams …
A mouth-watering edible landscape, a glorious playground parade populated by all manner of animals

and finally (my favourite and also hidden under the dust jacket) wherein the galaxy makers wield star-shaped dough cutters and every star is buffed and polished to make it shine.
Just like the boy in the story, Faye Hanson’s imagination knows no bounds. Not only the fantasy scenes, but every one of her spreads, including the sepia-toned real world ones, are filled with wonderful details: and, it is actually these early spreads, with their brighter coloured daydream insertions, that are harbingers of what is to come.
What a fortunate child to have adults – his parents

as well as his art teacher -in his life who at a crucial stage, encourage the boy to use his imagination for, on the final endpapers we are shown that same boy, now wearing a much larger duffel coat standing between his parents and an amazing spiralling exhibit in a large gallery – one assumes his sense of wonder has been encouraged to flourish.
Totally immersive, inspiring and a joy to behold, this is not just for dreamers. I would love to see this amazing and powerful book as a required focus for reading and discussion on every course where teachers are in training, for every teacher in schools and for all those who design (and prescribe) curriculums. If only I had the power to prescribe … I wonder what might happen, I wonder …
The trouble is you cannot measure imagination.

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