Shine by Danny Parker and Ruth de Vos

The vibrant mixed media illustrations making use of watercolour, pencil, screen printing and digital methods, create a rambunctious vision of the fun and laughter alongside the intermittent trials of family life. With both author and illustrator having experience with families of six children, it is to be expected that kids figure on every page, in all their moods.

We see kids playing house, reading books, listening to stories, playing games with Dad, helping Mum with the washing, playing in the garden with an array of things, having meals together, bathing together and finally sleeping. Each sings with the chaos and often shambolic nature of a household with a larger number of children, the children joining together in their activities, and also taking time for solitary pursuits. Mum and Dad are sometimes seen with the slightest of look of discomfort across their faces as they try to take a break, or sit and enjoy a cup of tea, or sit and read only to be interrupted. The looks on their faces are instantly recognisable.

Each double page has an apt line, ‘in my sparkle, you’re the spark’ for example which gives a metaphor for the place held in the parents’ hearts for the children. Each line sings with family and happiness, of being together, of doing things that families do, of sharing and caring. The illustrations show the family playing, eating, sleeping together. The frenzy of such a household, where dirty dishes and piles of washing are secondary, is beautifully realised in both word and image as the family and its interaction is held to be most important.

Readers will be able to predict the rhyming word, perhaps adding a suggestion or two themselves, and in some classes, some students may be encouraged to write their own lines using these lines as a model. Teaching notes are available.

Themes: Verse, Family, Relationships, Humour.

Fran Knight