Finding Home by Gary Crew
IIl.by Susy Boyer. Ford St Publishing, 2009. ISBN
9781876462871.
(Ages 6-10) A
family arrives from England and taking up land in the bush, the father
clears
the trees and plants a crop. He is proud of what he has achieved, but
when his
son, a reader, tells him that the lone tree in his field is home to
many
cockatoos, the father cuts down the tree, making the birds find another
place
to roost or die. Paralleling this act of destruction, the boy, too,
must leave
or die in the barren place his father has created.
The
sparsely written text builds quickly to a crescendo of emotional pull
as the
reader is drawn to the boy and his love of his environment, taking in
the chasm
between the view taken by the parents and the boy. The savagery of
cutting down
the tree, the only one left in the field, is underscored by the
emotions felt
by each of the participants. The boy can only watch as the birds fly
around
looking for their home, bewildered, confused, and angry, while the
parents are
oblivious to the damage they have done. The gulf between the members of
the
family is quietly resolved as the boy leaves the farm with the
bookseller.
The
brutishness of the parents is contrasted with the soft, sometimes
dreamlike,
drawings by Susy Boyer. Her illustrations give quietness to the pace of
the
book which is suddenly erupted by the close up pencil drawings of the
parents
as they take in what the boy has said about borrowing a book. And this
abrupt
change is reiterated when the tree is felled. Her use of coloured
pencils and
water colour give an unusual texture to the page.
But
there is an oddity about the book which I found fascinating. Why did
the boy
leave? Why did the parents hate that he is a reader? Why did the
illustrator
encircle the boy and the hawker as they left the farm, with a halo of
white?
These and other questions will be eagerly discussed, along with other
more
obvious ideas. The thought of 'home' in the title is beguiling, as it
covers so
many different views of home in this book. And just who is 'finding
home'?
Conservation, environmental concerns, land clearing, settlement and
colonization
are just some of the topics of conversation I predict children will
discuss in
a classroom where this book is made available. And the idea of parents
being
cross with the child for reading a book! Well, I could go on and on.
Fran
Knight