Look! A Book!

“Look , a Book!....

Let’s hold it close…….
And then we can read it,
Again, and again, and again.”
(From "Look, a Book! by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood)

“Look, A Book!” shouts the title of one of the delightful books shortlisted by the Children’s Book Council of Australia for 2012. Somehow, this simple exclamation captures the excitement, the wonder, and the joy of discovering a book to read.

While naysayers suggest that the shelf life of books, that is of physical books, is limited with the advent of eBooks, no one who has read a beautifully illustrated book to a child lately, or picked up a glossy covered book will doubt the joy of reading a real book. Long live books!

Yes I admit I’m biased. Call me old-fashioned, but I am a product of my upbringing after all. Opening the first page of a real life book is still as exciting an experience, as it was when I was a child. Books come in all shapes and sizes and while I appreciate the ease of opening and reading a book on a tablet or kindle, I enjoy far more the reading experience of a real life book.

I love the fact that books come in all shapes and sizes, as messy as this might be for those of us who collect books, but isn’t that the real beauty of books? As John Hunt suggests in “The Art of the Idea”, logic can be kryptonite because it carries with it, terrifying weight and can stop dreamers dead in their tracks. Real books live and breathe for those of us who read them. Don’t you just love the colourfully illustrated books where the characters seem to jump out off the page and enter your own world?

Imagine giving all students an A4 page only and telling them that they can draw anything they like as long as it was A4 size? How limiting? How stifling? How unimaginative? How awful? Imagine shortlisted book, the Queensland Art Gallery’s “Surrealism for Kids” in A4 black and white pages, with no cute cut-outs or weird characters or iconography? Dull! Dull! Dull!

Imagine shortlisted “For All Creatures” written by Glenda Millard and Rebecca Cool, without wonderful coloured stylised images of all manner of creatures from the animal kingdom. Where’s the inspiration to engage our children’s mind without such creative images? Books are tactile, they are visual, and they are a window into another’s person’s creative mind of stories, colour and emotion.

Books make us think, they make us dream of possibilities and they engage in a way that is very personal. Each of us takes from the same story a different message. Some of us will think deeply about the subject while others will be quite dismissive and sceptical of the topic. Some will experience a real ‘aha’ moment and be forever changed by the words on a page. Books, whether positive or negative, leave an indelible mark on our psyche.

“Ailing am I,
In cage of twisty wire, cold concrete.
Mourn,
Ache,
Yearn….”
(From: "The Dream of theThylacine")

The lament of the Thylacine is palpable in the honourable mentioned book, ”The Dream of the Thylacine” by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks. The reader is left with a great sense of loss and sadness for the Tasmanian Tiger and what could have been. Books help us empathise with animals as well as humans too.

“As the pirates were leaving, one of them felt sorry for us, and threw us a bottle of water. It wasn’t much, but it saved our lives.”
(From: "The Little Refugee")

“The Little Refugee”, written by Anh Do and Suzanne Do is the inspiring true story of Australia’s Happiest Refugee, Anh Do and family, who made their way to Australia in a rickety boat of dubious seaworthiness. The authors are donating 100 per cent of their profits from the sale of this book to the Loreto Vietnam – Australia Program which was started by Loreto nun Sister Trish Franklin. This charity looks after extremely poor and disabled children in Vietnam. Not only is the story itself inspiring but the authors are making a real difference to other people’s lives by their generous donation back to those less fortunate in the villages of Vietnam.

Books are alive and the child's love of reading will only grow with parents reading more to them. As the back cover of the “Look, a Book” suggests……

“You never know where it might take you.”

Perhaps today is as good day as any to start reading a book ourselves and reading to our sons and daughters, in this week, of all weeks, Book Week.

Karon Graham