Tag prejudice

Ootch Cootch

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Ootch Cootch
Malachy Doyle and Hannah Doyle
Graffeg

Author Malachy Doyle has collaborated with his daughter, illustrator Hannah Doyle to create this timely thought-provoking book.

How would you feel if you landed up alone in a place where nobody else speaks the same language as you? Terrified probably, and so it is for Little Skunk who is left behind on a railway platform when the train taking his family has departed.

The other animals are reluctant to respond to the tannoy message for help from the stationmaster for anyone speaking Skunk to come to his aid. Little Bel Badger doesn’t want to assist because, so she tells her Mum, “He smells”. Mum explains it’s on account of him being frightened and then Bel offers to try.

The little skunk is clutching a photo as Bel listens to what he has to say and does her very best to make sense of his words.

With Hare and Rabbit’s help, she works out that it’s a family photo and that they’ve gone off in a train accidentally leaving him behind in the loo.

Words of reassurance follow and a promise from the stationmaster that he’ll ring through to the next station and get the train halted there.

When the next train arrives all the animals climb aboard with Little Skunk and en route change their minds about him.
After a journey of anxiety on Bel and Little Skunk’s part they reach their destination and ‘Hurrah!’ The skunk family is re-united.

But there’s a pleasant surprise awaiting Bel too. “Ootch Cootch!’ Good on Bel for standing against prejudice.

This tale has much to say to us all, child and adult, in these troubled times when all too many people are quick to form judgements about anyone at all ‘different’. After all we’re all different and we all need to embrace that difference, accommodate others, learn about and from them. That way lies the route to making not just our own country but others, a better place; a hopeful place with better times to come.

Told and illustrated as it is, with gentle, warm-hearted humour, a topical picture book like Malachy and Hannah’s is a good place to start. (By the way ‘Ootch cootch’ is Skunk for ‘hug’).

Look Out, It’s a Dragon!

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Look Out, It’s a Dragon!
Jonny Lambert
Little Tiger Press

It’s always a pleasure to open a package and discover a new Jonny Lambert picture book. This, his latest, is something of a departure in that it stars a mythical, rather than a ‘real’ animal although there are plenty of the latter herein too.

Without further ado let me introduce Saffi. She’s an atypical dragon who isn’t interested in capturing princesses, nor in crushing castles, and she’s had quite enough of bottom-bruising rocky mountains. So off she flies in search of a more hospitable environment in which to live.

That is just what she thinks she’s found when she lands rather ungracefully in a sunny woodland. The forest animals however, think otherwise and start fleeing for their lives.

Suddenly Saffi hears a squeaky “Oi! Knobbly knickers! You can’t stay here!” from behind her. It’s Mouse expressing an opinion held by all the forest inhabitants on account of her fiery dragon nature. The dragon does her best to persuade the little creature otherwise and has almost won him over when disaster strikes in the form of a twitchy nose that ends in a very forceful sneeze that scares Mouse …

and damages Warbler’s plumage.

Saffi sets off in pursuit only wreaking more havoc …

until the animals have had enough and the poor well-intentioned dragon is sent packing in no uncertain terms.

Later though, something happens that puts the forest animals and their habitat in real peril.

Who can save them now?

A drama that embodies themes of prejudice, friendship, the dangers of stereotyping and bravery.

Gentle humour pervades the dragon-dominated, mixed media illustrations although even the very tiny participants make their presence felt strongly in the unfolding drama. As always in Lambert’s books, body language is superbly done throughout.

Your heart really does go out to Saffi in her attempts to find a new home so you will be happy to learn that there’s a dragon template that can be used for children to create their very own Saffi character. I’d suggest making a whole diorama and suspending the dragon somewhere therein.

I’ve signed the charter  

Leaf

jillrbennett 1 Comment

Leaf
Sandra Dieckmann
Flying Eye Books
Sandra Dieckmann’s love of the natural world shines right out at you from the arresting cover of her debut picture book.
It opens with a ‘strange white creature’ on an ice floe drifting shoreward upon dark and brooding waters, watched by a large black crow. Once ashore, the polar bear makes its home in a deserted hillside cave: an outsider watched and distrusted by the forest animals. It forages for leaves, watchful, wary; and the residents bestow upon it the name Leaf on account of its strange behaviour, but equally because they want rid of him. They all talk about Leaf but none dares talk to him.

And so it goes on until one day leaf- clad, the bear charges through the forest astonishing all that see, and launches himself, from the hillside and plunges into the lake below.
While the soaking creature hides once more in his cave, the other animals meet to discuss what to do. Conflicting opinions emerge, (only the crows speak for him) with the result that they do nothing.
Leaf meanwhile renews his determination to take flight, this time from a cliff …

and once he’s safely back on shore, the crows – intelligent beings that they are – finally allow him to speak. And speak he does – to them all – about melting ice and his desire to return to his family.
As conveyors of mood and movement, Sandra Dieckmann’s illustrations are impressive.

Executed in black, white, greys, blues and teals with occasional stand out splashes of red, orange, rust, yellow and the greens of the patterned leaves and flowering plants, the landscape portrayed is at once beautiful and at times, hostile.
It’s said in folklore that crows are harbingers of change: I’d like to think that those in Leaf’s story might act as symbols of a positive change in the way outsiders are viewed by too many of us. With themes that include global warming, outsiders, prejudice, loneliness and reaching out to others, this poignantly beautiful book is both topical and timely.

I’ve signed the charter