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emkoshka's review
3.0
This book was short-listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia awards. It's an interesting collaboration between 13 artists who tell the story of an African boy dying of starvation. All royalties from sales of the book are donated to Save the Children and the subject matter comes straight from the newspapers, Colin Thompson having been inspired by a recent famine in Niger.
The subject matter is tough but the illustrations, which range from Gaye Chapman's delightful and soft evocation of characters from childhood literature to the simplistic crude and colourful lines of Terry Denton to an amazing evocation of starving people's transparency in chalk on black by Emma Quay to the hyper-realism of David Legge's ironic touch of a man sweeping his leftovers into the garbage on top of a newspaper photograph of a starving child holding out an empty bowl. The book finishes with Colin Thompson's photographic depiction of Earth at the head of a burning matchstick.
Sad and beautiful but an important read, if only to let people know that for every child that is well-fed and clothed and sheltered, there are a hundred who waste away to nothing.
The subject matter is tough but the illustrations, which range from Gaye Chapman's delightful and soft evocation of characters from childhood literature to the simplistic crude and colourful lines of Terry Denton to an amazing evocation of starving people's transparency in chalk on black by Emma Quay to the hyper-realism of David Legge's ironic touch of a man sweeping his leftovers into the garbage on top of a newspaper photograph of a starving child holding out an empty bowl. The book finishes with Colin Thompson's photographic depiction of Earth at the head of a burning matchstick.
Sad and beautiful but an important read, if only to let people know that for every child that is well-fed and clothed and sheltered, there are a hundred who waste away to nothing.
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