The news of New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary’s death on Friday has brought that first ascent of Everest in 1953 back into the headlines, along with tributes to Hillary’s subsequent humanitarian and environmental work in Nepal.
The Sherpa Tenzing Norgay is indelibly linked with Hillary and so it is really no surprise that we reached for Robert Burleigh and Ed Young’s wonderful book Tiger of the Snows: Tenzing Norgay, The Boy Whose Dream Was Everest. An inspiring prose poem of aspiration and determination, it expresses Norgay’s love and respect for the mountains which tower over his home and how he comes to climb to the very top of Everest alongside Edmund Hillary. Ed Young’s breathtaking pastel shading draws young listeners into the mountains so that they too are trudging through the snow and seeking not to awaken the power of the metaphorical but depicted sleeping cat within.
It’s a story worth telling and this is a lovely version for young children to go to sleep on.
One of Australian illustrator Sally Rippin’s recent children’s books (published in 2005 in Australia, 2007 in the U.S.) opens upwards rather than outwards. I asked Sally how she and author Whitney Stewart decided on the format for Becoming Buddha. Here’s her reply:
“Whitney suggested working together on a picture book, and I approached my publisher at the time with her ideas. They agreed to publish our book, and it was then left up to me to illustrate Whitney’s text. I decided to have Becoming Buddha open so the illustration reads vertically on the double page to represent an ancient manuscript, or a thangka. From what I know about Buddhism, I believe opening the book in this way makes you more conscious of your actions. Fortunately, the publisher agreed to this format.
“Painting the face of Siddhartha was quite challenging, because I knew there were certain rules about how the Buddha could be represented in art, and I also wanted to make the paintings my own representations of Siddhartha, the man, before he became enlightened. Again fortunately, Whitney was able to have a representative of the Dalai Lama approve the artwork before it went to press, so that gave me confidence.”
Melbourne poet and blogger Kris Helmsley had some interesting observations about the layout and Buddhism when he introduced Sally and Becoming Buddha at a book launch in June 2007; read his comments here.
Another vertically read book with an equally conscious layout is Caldecott Medal winner Ed Young’s Beyond the Great Mountains. Its cascading-style pages, illustrating Chinese characters and landscapes, also create a special physical awareness for young readers.
Yesterday was Peace Day – thousands of people around the world stopped to stand together for a world without conflict, for a world united:
PEACE is more than the absence of war.
It is about transforming our societies and
uniting our global community
to work together for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world for ALL. (Peace Day)
There is an ever-increasing number of children’s books being written by people who have experienced conflict first hand and whose stories give rise to discussion that may not be able to answer the question, “Why?” but at least allows history to become known and hopefully learnt from.
For younger children, such books as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino; Peacebound Trains by Haemi Balgassi; and The Orphans of Normandy by Nancy Amis all 
focus on children who are the innocent victims of conflict. We came across The Orphans of Normandy last summer. I was looking for something to read with my boys on holiday, when we were visiting some of the Normandy World War II sites. It is an extraordinary book: a diary written by the head of an orphanage in Caen and illustrated by the girls themselves as they made a journey of 150 miles to flee the coast. Some of the images are very sobering, being an accurate depiction of war by such young witnesses. It worked well as an introduction to the effects of conflict, without being unnecessarily traumatic.
The story of Sadako Sasaki, (more…)
There’s been quite a bit about illustrated children’s books in the British press recently: first, back in April, I noticed
this 
article from The Daily Telegraph about how research has shown that “very young children learn faster from picture books that contain colour photographs than from books with colour drawings” Aaaargh! Thank goodness it goes on to point out some of what’s special about artists’ illustrations. Then I noticed that
Achockablog have highlighted another
article from the Glasgow Herald in which
Debi Gliori bemoans the currently perceived status of picture books. That made me really sad as Debi has been a firm favorite in our household since Baby Number One would only eat if
Hello, Baby Bear was being read to him – every splodge of mush on a buzzy bee or a hooty owl belies the notion that he was too small to understand what the drawings meant…
Debi’s words have made me think about the role of illustration and how much good illustrations are inseparable from their story. The other day we were again reading Ed Young’s Beyond the Great Mountains, tracing the parallels between the pictures and the characters, reading the words over and over. It was a deeply satisfying read in the way only poetry can be – and a very calm way to end the day… which is quite amazing really, as we had also been doing mental gymnastics talking about how it all fitted together.
So how about you? What special picture books are you reading with your child at the moment? Do send in your comments and let us know.
I love Tiger of the Snows and so did the small boy whom I gave it to! In a perfect world, we would all live in landscapes painted by Ed Young.