Small things by Mel Tregonning
Allen and Unwin, 2016. ISBN 9781742379791
(Age: all) Highly recommended. Mental Health, Suicide, Loneliness,
Graphic novel. A child stares out from the front cover, large eyed,
on the edge of tears, alone in his bed. Readers will wonder about
the child and turn the pages uncovering the stunning black and white
illustrations in this wordless graphic novel. Each set of
illustrations propels the idea of the child's aloneness, even in the
midst of people. In class there is no room for him, he is an extra
person, isolated and excluded. No one chooses him when a game is
played, and he eats lunch alone. With his confidence undermined he
receives a C for class work, others receive an A or a B. At home his
sister, a violin player is the only person to listen. She offers
some comfort but she too is not holding herself together very well.
Each child has their own worry monsters.
Tregonning depicts the loneliness and increasing mental ill heath of
the child through her illustrations with small pieces of the child
falling away as he walks or sits in class. He is becoming less of
himself as small things fall from his body, with cracks appearing on
his arms and face - just like his sister's. Each is unwell, ably
depicted through the disturbing illustrations reiterating the
feeling of being worthless and alone.
Even in a crowd he has pieces falling from him, and while in bed
images swirl around him filling his head and disturbing his sleep.
He talks again to his sister, and the anxious feelings diminish, so
he talks to his parents, and sleep comes. Finally when in a crowd he
sees that many others are just like him, and he is able to hold out
his hand to another.
This is an amazing book, full of ideas about mental ill health,
showing how the child feels, but also offering some ways to deal
with the anxiety.
The whole is made breathtakingly resonant when reading about Mel
Tregonning who began this book nine years ago, and took her own life
in 2014. Her family found the incomplete manuscript and with the aid
of Shaun Tan, the work was completed as a memorial to their talented
daughter and sister.
On the simplest level, younger children reading this book will see
that many people have worries and concerns: they are not alone, and
they can reach out to others for help. Mental ill health while not a
common theme in children's books, has a growing presence. The recent
issue of The Literature Base (August 2016) has an article about
Mental Health in children's literature in which I pulled together a
number of recent children's books with that theme as part of the
story.
This book quantifies the anguish and lack of confidence felt by
people in this position, the monsters which besiege them are always
there but with help can be kept at bay. And this makes it a valuable
tool to have in the classroom where one in five is likely to be
suffering from some form of mental ill health.
Fran Knight