David Almond
I don't generally use this site to write about picture books. It's not that I don't like them. I love them. But I have so many wonderful novels to write up and I feel I have to try to focus my dilettante enthusiasms, at least to a degree. There has to be room for exceptions though. There just has to be room for The Dam.
To start with, David Almond is one of our foremost contemporary writers for young people. I have admired and enjoyed his books for many years now. There is far more to him than Skellig - a truly wonderful book, although just possibly over-used as a KS3 'class reader'. Over recent years, his wide range of other fiction, much with a North Eastern grounding, and all with a masterly economy of evocative language, has built into one of the finest canons in the genre. My own favourite is Secret Heart, but there is not a book of his that should be missed*.
Words that sing
Here he takes what is essentially a contemplation of the early '80s damming of the Kielder Valley in northern Northumberland. Working from a story told to him by two local folk musicians, he creates a terse lyrical text about a young girl and her father. She fiddles a lament for what has been lost and, in doing so, conjures the 'ghosts' of past inhabitants to celebrate both the land and its music, its heritage and its beauty.
I was going to write that David Almond's words are 'almost poetry', but that would not do them full justice. They are poetry, even if they are not verse; they dance and sing from the page as surely as the tunes from the girl's fiddle. They lament the loss of the past, but also celebrate the wild glory of the present. They do not preach and so they do not lead us to judge, only to reflect, to take joy in both past and present. His song, like the keen of her playing, weaves through the pages.
Levi Pinfold - images that sing
Yet I am sure David Almond will not mind me saying that his text is only half, perhaps less than half, of this thoughtful and deeply affecting book. To call Levi Pinfold the 'illustrator' of this work is again to do less than justice. He is very much its co-creator and his ravishingly evocative images contribute every bit as much as the words. They not only complement but extend their touching meditation. In fact, some important aspects, such as the tender communion between father and daughter, are to be gleaned more from the pictures than from the text. If there has been a more captivating visual/verbal collaboration since the publication last year of Lost Words** then I have not yet discovered it. Levi Pinfold's images sing to the heart of the story and to the heart of the reader. He and David Almond together make Kielder a part of us all
A lesson-plan (of sorts)
It is not often, these days, that a book gets me thinking as the classroom teacher I used to be, but The Dam was an exception in this too. So, for any teachers interested, here are some very generalised suggestions. Creative work is something that should emphatically be planned for, but not itself meticulously planned. Start with a wonderful stimulus, as this is, and just allow possibilities. (The teaching of knowledge and skills can be fed in at other times and in other ways.)
Share and absorb The Dam. Luxuriate in it, the words, the images. Think about it. Talk about it. (What was lost? What was gained? What links them?) Above all, enjoy it.
Then (any or all of):
Read the final information page and find out more.
Listen to some of the songs of Kathryn Tickell.
Research other 'lost' villages (e.g. the 1930s drowning of Mardale Green in Cumbria to create the Haweswater reservoir).
Find out about 'dark sky' and its importance. Read the poems Night Walker and Dark Sky Park by Philip Gross (see my post from July '18).
Think about losing a home and stories about losing a home.
Think about wild places and stories about wild places.
Think about (folk) music and stories about the importance of music.
In response, let the children (any or all of): write, draw, paint, role-play, dance, play/create music, think, dream.
Books can sing
It is a joy to welcome another fine example of just how much some picture books have to offer older children Key Stage 2 (MG) teachers, parents, and of course children, who are neglecting this genre are missing out on a most wonderfully rich source of reading challenge, imaginative stimulation and sensuous enjoyment.
David Almond and Levi Pinfold turn paper pages into potent dream. They float a lament for loss and a skirl of wild wonder on the air of Kielder. Books, like music, can sing to the soul.
Notes:
*Most of his novels are perhaps principally for early teens readers.
**By Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. See my post from October '17