“At the end of a long day when I was nine months pregnant, my 4-year-old, Winter, asked, ‘Is Daddy going to die?’…
Bon Voyage, Mister Rodriguez cover by Christiane Duchesne and illustrator François Thisdale
Death is one of the
most difficult subjects to talk about with a child. It’s so vast, so many
things to so many people that, like wandering Macy’s the week before Christmas,
it’s hard to know where to start and you’re tempted to avoid it altogether.
There is the obvious fear of traumatizing your child, giving her too long a
look into the abyss. There is also the self-conscious suspicion that whatever
you end up saying will ultimately reveal more about who you are than it will
about the subject itself. Thankfully, a host of new picture books tackle ‘taking
the ferry,’ staring down that overtly thwarting subject, and making it
personal, peaceful and approachable.
In Christiane Duchesne
and Francois Thisdale’s bewitching Bon Voyage, Mister Rodriguez, set in a small seaside town, a group
of kids watch the mysterious comings and goings of a man who wears a bright red
scarf and looks as if he has ‘clouds under his coat.’ His solitary meanderings
through the cobblestone streets and his eccentric love of animals — he attaches
wings to a cat’s back, strolls with a goldfish bowl on his head — go unnoticed
by the adults. But to the children he is a fascination and delight.
When he abruptly disappears…his absence prompts a strong sense of community as [the children] band together to say their goodbyes…Thisdale’s realistic yet dreamlike illustrations, windswept with mist and surreal painted skies, add to the sense of wonder….
As these four books illustrate and I have come to realize, the conversation about death is alive, shifting and fading, bobbing to the surface and just as swiftly sinking below. It is not one thing for us or for children. When I asked Winter again what she thought about death, there was no memory of my parental wipeout. She simply announced with great confidence: ‘You don’t need a phone.’ She had worked it out just fine.” —Marisha Pessl
“It’s soup day at a Kenyan schoolhouse. While the teachers stir the broth, the children gather vegetables from the community garden. All except for one. Little Kioni is looking for her missing herd of goats, only to discover that they have followed her to school and are now wreaking havoc in the garden. A frustrated Kioni announces, ‘These pesky goats make me so mad… I’d like to put them in the soup.’ This statement turns out to be a ‘eureka’ moment in that the wayward goats do make a contribution to the soup… with their milk!
Alma Fullerton has incorporated the perfect ingredients to create an engaging and charming picture book. With its conversational tone, including a dash of questions and exclamations, Community Soup makes for an excellent read-aloud. One section is similar to ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ which adds to the fun: ‘Kioni has a herd of goats/with hair of calico./And everywhere Kioni goes,/those goats are sure to —/ GO!’
Fullerton’s colourful three-dimensional art, which integrates paper sculpture and mixed media collage, draws readers into that lovely far-away community garden where cooperation, sharing, and commitment are so very important. One can almost feel the textures emanate off the pages. And, as a bonus, a recipe for pumpkin vegetable soup is included…”
—Senta Ross
“PreS-Gr 2–With echoes of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” this amusing tale set in a Kenyan school garden tells the story of students and their teachers making soup. A girl’s recalcitrant goats, however, do little to help with the process: “Kioni has a herd of goats,/with hair of calico./And everywhere Kioni goes,/those goats are sure to…Oh, no!” Finally, one clever student realizes that the animals have just the right ingredient to add to the meal: their milk. This title will be a fun read-aloud, with lots of opportunities for listeners to predict the upcoming action. The full-color, mixed-media collages steal the show. The illustrations add texture and vibrancy to the tale and advance the plot on several wordless pages. The book ends with a recipe for pumpkin vegetable soup. A great choice for group sharing or for units on communities.”
—Sara-Jo Lupo Sites, George F. Johnson Memorial Library, Endicott, NY
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“Book Reviews: Savoring the Bounty of Gardens and Good Food”
—The International Reading Association reviews books about gardening and food, including Community Soup by Alma Fullerton
“’It’s soup day!’ The first line of this story draws readers into a day-in-the-life of Kenyan school community, which Fullerton depicts with mixed-media collage and paper-sculptures that lend a diorama-like depth to each scene….A satisfying and worthy purchase…”
