Australian publishers Ford Street Publishing are running an international competition to mark the publication of the first three books in the new fantasy Warlock’s Child series (The Burning Sea, Dragonfall Mountain and The Iron Claw) written by Paul Collins and Continue reading ...
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By: [email protected],
on 10/6/2014
Susanne Gervay is an award-winning author, speaker, recipient of the Order of Australia and all-round dynamo. She rushed into my life last year at the Central Queensland Literary Festival. I had the pleasure of sharing an apartment, and lots of stories with Susanne during our week-long visit to schools in Rockhampton and Emerald. Her energy was […]
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By: Aline Pereira,
on 12/12/2012
Head on over to the PaperTigers website, where you will find hundreds of Cats and Dogs waiting to greet you. I exaggerate only slightly for one of our new features is a Gallery of Korean artist Chinlun Lee‘s work, including illustrations from her delightful picture book The Very Kind Rich Lady and Her One Hundred Dogs.
Japanese illustrator Kae Nishimura also features in our Gallery; and we have new interviews with illustrator Meilo So from her home in the Scottish Shetland Islands and Australian Aboriginal elder and storyteller Gladys Milroy, co-author with her daughter Jill Milroy of our Book of the Month, Dingo’s Tree (Magabala Books, 2012).
Also from Australia, Susanne Gervay has written a Personal View about “The Images of Dogs in Ships in the Field” – Ships in the Field is her latest book and was a project close to her heart since it relates part of her childhood as the daughter of Hungarian refugees.
Our featured authors and illustrators all share stories and photographs of the dogs and cats in their lives. In the early days of the PaperTigers Blog, Janet wrote a post about reading to her family’s huskies when she was a child. In my own family, you will often find the dog curled up next to (or on top of) whoever is reading – and over the next couple of months we invite you to send us your photos and/or stories of reading time shared with a pet to be featured here on the Blog – please do email them to me, marjorieATpapertigersDOTorg – we’d love to hear from you.
By: Aline Pereira,
on 10/28/2012
Susanne Gervay, illustrated by Anna Pignataro,
Ships in the Field
Ford Street Publishing, 2012.
Ages: 8+
“Every night Brownie and I wait for Papa to come home.” – and when he arrives, “Round and round we whirl.” This joyous ritual provides the opening sequence of Ships in the Field, a story whose essence is perhaps distilled into the notion of the transcendental power of love. Acclaimed Australian author Susanne Gervay (I Am Jack, That’s Why I Wrote This Song) has based the story on her own childhood as the daughter of Hungarian refugees. Told through the eyes, perception and narrative voice of a likeable, effervescent little girl, we learn that her beloved, funny Papa works in a car factory but used to be a farmer “in the old country, before it was broken”; and quiet, withdrawn Ma, who seems to have forgotten how to smile, was a teacher and now “sews dresses all day long”. The girl’s confidante is her soft toy dog Brownie but she also longs for a real dog.
Every Sunday the family goes into the countryside and Papa says, “Look at the ships in the field.” This makes the little girl giggle, for it conjures up a funny image, but it makes her sad too, because other people laugh at the way her father speaks – and so she staunchly joins him in his pronunciation of the word “sheep”. One Sunday, near the “woolly ships”, she finds something very precious that signals a new chapter for all the family.
The undercurrents in the story are felt in the girl’s awareness of aspects of her family’s past. It is never mentioned in her presence but it weighs on her nevertheless, and she confides in Brownie, “I don’t like war.” Anna Pignataro’s beautiful watercolour illustrations perfectly capture the emotions – love, pain, joy – that emanate from the story. As well as the ever-faithful Brownie, vignettes of a real dog appear throughout the story; and two notable sequences merge events from the past, depicting war and flight through the second-hand filter of the little girl’s knowledge and imagination. The rough pencil outlines underlying the watercolours imbue the illustrations with energy and a sense of movement that is further emphasised in the variety of page layouts: the use of continuous narrative is particularly effective.
Ships in the Field is itself a multi-layered term, from straightforward mispronunciation to providing scope for metaphorical and poetic interpretation – or simply delight in its nonsense. While offering a warm reading experience for young children, the book also poses questions for older readers and adults about how much young children can or should know about painful elements in a family’s past; and about the damage that can be caused by not bringing the past into the open, when children have already absorbed more than adults give them credit for. Each rereading of this perfect synthesis between spoken and visual narrative offers something new, through the nuance of the writing or a dawning awareness of a visual motif. Above all, Ships in the Field is a very special picture book of extraordinary depth, that carries a message of hope and reassurance that time does and will heal.
Marjorie Coughlan
October 2012
By: Susanne Gervay,
on 12/15/2011
THANKYOU FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL REVIEW
Ships in the Field by Susanne Gervay, illustrated by Anna Pignataro
(Ford Street Publishing)
HB RRP $26.95
ISBN 978-1921665233
Reviewed by Francine Sculli
for BUZZ WORDS
Joining the mastery of award-winning author, Susanne Gervay and award-winning illustrator, Anna Pignataro – Ships in the Field is a picture book filled with significance, beauty and rich subtext.
Narrated through the simple, but intuitive eyes of a little girl, this picture book tells the story of life for a refugee family who have fled from their war torn country and started a new life in a foreign land. The little girl shares heart warming family moments with the reader. Images of her father splashing her with water from the laundry tub, making hats for the whole family from paper napkins, promising her a puppy that she so longs for, or sitting on top of trees that give a view of the whole world; all of these provide a safe and comfortable foundation for her to share other images of her family’s life that are far deeper and more complex. We see her mother crying in the hallway as she sleeps, we hear of how the night scares her, we hear of the loss of their previous life, and the complexity of mistaking ‘ship’ for ‘sheep’. These images are delicately interwoven in a way that brings hope and understanding.
The intricate images from Anna Pignataro are wonderfully complimentary and equally telling. She captures the warmth, solidary and strength of the family through her soft, watercolour images; however, the double page image spreads also provide the subtext for what is left partially unsaid in the narrative – the gloom, loss, fear and devastation of war. Colour is a significant part of the illustrations and the sense of hope overcoming loss and devastation is depicted through the changing colours, as the darker and more neutral tones are slowly replaced with brighter and more vibrant colours towards the books close.
Through its imagery, clever word play and warmth, Ships in the Field has created a thoughtful and touching insight into the world of a child whose life has been shredded by war. While it is a great insight, it is not overly confronting and easily accessible for younger readers. It is a significant picture book that will assist children (aged 7+) to develop empathy and understanding.
