Sharing a tower
It is rare for me to review a picture book, but a new piece of work by our current Children’s Laureate is not to be ignored; and this certainly turns out to be a treasure.
Drawing on the experiences of his own childhood, Joseph Coelho has already given us the brilliant poetry collection Overheard in a Tower Block (strongly recommended). Now he returns to explore issues of that familiar upbringing for a rather younger audience, in the equally moving Our Tower.
Joseph Coelho’s story is, unsurprisingly, poetic, but its poetry is not simply in its language but in its ideas. in its ability to condense rich and meaningful experiences into a few words and pages.
From a starting point of thinking the place where they live is grey and boring, children living in a tower block are encouraged to exploit its height and look out beyond their immediate concrete labyrinth. When they do, they see trees and set off to seek out one in particular. Consequently they connect with nature and an ancient spirit of the tree in question gifts them a stone with a hole, through which they can look. This new perspective allows them to see the humanity, and the goodness of humanity, to be found in their own tower homes. It is a profound an important message condensed into simple but highly effective form.
Grey to yellow by way of green
However, as is right and proper for the highest quality picture book, the illustrations are as big a part as the text and here Richard Johnson’s are quite superb. In fact whilst Joseph Coelho’s text carries the essence of the book, far more of the actual narrative is conveyed through the pictures. It is in the visual images that the characters of three individual children are introduced and developed: one a strong leader, an explorer, the second an observer, recording, sketching, and the third younger, but inquisitive, intuitive. Actions and reactions, are beautifully conveyed, often in multiple rectangles that echo the windows of the tower block, sometimes creating sequences, sometimes revealing simultaneous facets, but always illuminating and enriching the story. What impressed and delighted me most of all, however, is Richard Johnson’s wonderful use of a changing colour palette: blue-greys for the initial tower, green hughes for the world of nature, pinks and purples creeping in for the ‘magic’ revealed there and, finally. sunny oranges and yellows for the joys to be found at home. Such conjuring with colour will communicate with young readers every bit as powerfully as the wonderful words, so that the two work in ideal artistic complement to create something very fine indeed.
His tower, your tower, our tower
To many children who live in tower blocks, Our Tower will be a reassurance that their lives can be just as magical and joy-filled as anyone else’s.
To the rest who live in grey, concrete towers of any other kind it will be a path to a new freedom and light too. It is, after all our tower, perhaps everyone’s tower.
Whilst those of us who considered The Girl Who Became a Tree to be just about the most excitingly devastating poetic feast to come our way in a long while, this lovely book is a small but tasty crumb to sate our appetites whilst we await impatiently the huge treat that I anticipate in October when The Boy Lost in the Maze comes our way.
