Short-listed, But They Don't Quite Get The Picture

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday August 19, 1994

MEG SORENSON

ORIGINALITY. Subtlety. Complexity. Wit. Wisdom. Imaginative daring. Shouldn't we be looking for some measure of all of these in a children's book worthy of a place on Australia's most influential short list? After all, the creators of these books are the people into whose hands we place the chubby fists of our future. Let's look, for a moment, at where our children are being led.

Narelle Oliver's picture book The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay is a moral tale which attempts to lead small children to the conclusion that different does not necessarily mean better. When a couple of the expertly handcoloured linocuts actually reach beyond decoration and communicate to kids, the idea works well, but the lesson is a simple and neat one. It never really enters the complicated tangle of desires which may really fuel the competitive drive. Fair enough, too, but should we expect a short-listed title to work a little harder?

Margaret Wild and illustrator Noela Young's Toby is about how hard it is to deal with change. Wild has written many picture books which belong to the popular "social engineering" school and many applaud her skill. Certainly, the lump does rise in your throat when the old dog must die, but this might be because hard facts are difficult to swallow, no matter how soft the coating. Best intentions and pretty images aside, for leading children towards lessons which really teach them about life, Toby has the scent of a garden path.

Is It True Grandfather takes small children on a trip to the Seychelles. It's a pleasant enough journey, too, but perhaps, for a short-listed book, it shouldn't be quite so easy to forget.

Andrew and Janet McLean's Dog Tails gently takes the hand of a small child and leads off for a tour of the idiosyncrasies of dogs. The trip is a safe one, but if you're looking for the deep safeness that comes from an understanding of the presence of danger that you find in a story by the Brothers Grimm, you won't find it here.

The Paw is an amusingly naughty tale about a girl who is a cat burglar by night, enhanced by simple, colourful and wellcomposed illustrations which communicate clearly and keep the tone appropriately light. Happily, too, it doesn't lead kids to the social worker's shop and the girl is allowed to continue her Robin Hood ways.

Peter Gouldthorpe's visually impressive interpretation of Gary Crew's First Light leads kids straight to the psychiatrist's couch. Beautiful and poetic could be used to describe both the illustrations and the text, but complex desires are not, in the tradition of great children's books, enmeshed here in accessible allegorical form; instead they bubble menacingly beneath the surface.

This then is a journey which denies children the fulfilment of coming face to face with the dragon of their fears, which in a picture book for children, does seem a little unfair. First Light looks like a winner, but for my money it's The Paw, by a whisker. At least it's been created for kids.

The journey to the land of anything is possible (the ancient domain of the story) has a sad advertisement in Gillian Rubinstein's The Giant's Tooth - a short-listed book for younger readers. It has about as much narrative flair as a Coke ad and if Emily Rodda's Rowan of Rin deserved a place, perhaps we should sell the space on book covers to McDonald's. There may indeed be a place for a books which a computer could write if it was programmed to string together all the right cliches, but is it on the short list?

By total contrast, Nadia Wheatley's Lucy in the Leap Year starts out full of originality. This is writing honed down to achieve moments of real wit. It is a pity, then, to see characters so lightly drawn at the outset grow heavy with meaning, and what starts out as a journey on the high road to the unknown, end up a little bad and flat.

The Last Week in December has flashes of brilliance, too, but Dubosarsky's talent (shown in her earlier books) for journeys following unpredictable lines of flight in an individual's subconscious is not evident here. Instead we get endless descriptions of fetching and carrying which are dull rather than idiosyncratic. It's sad to see this talented writer's voice so muted.

Elizabeth Honey's Honey Sandwich, a book of poems and drawings, may lead young readers to a lot of laughs; it may also lead them to believe anything goes - as long as it entertains. The poem Great-Grandmother is a good example

Ancient Great-Grandmother, she's a hoot.

She calls me 'Old Slipper', I call her 'old Boot'.

When she says, 'Why aren't you in bed yet |'

I always say, 'Why aren't you dead yet |'

You'd have to suspect this one of leading children to a dead end.

Finally, Mary Steele's Featherbys may just lead young readers to believe in the magic of a good story well told. It makes a suburban world inhabited by elderly sisters fairly sparkle with possibility. This is a journey which both illuminates and, at times, enchants. Given the field, the freshness and clarity of the voice mark Featherbys my winner.

PICTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR

First lifht, Peter Gouldthorpe (illustration), Gary Crew (text), (Thomas C. Lothian)

BOOK OF THE YEAR Younger Readers

Rowan of Rin, Emily Rodda (Omnibus Books)