‘The Boy and the Elephant’ is a wordless picture book that offers more with each read. Freya Blackwood says she was inspired by a remembered childhood book, ‘Anno’s Animals’, by Mitsumasa Anno. In his book, Anno hides dozens of animals in forest scenes. Some animals are easy to spot. Others are cleverly camouflaged.
A young boy lives in an apartment on a crowed street. He goes about his daily life alone. His father is busy working, and his mother is looking after the baby. The boy appears lonely both at home and in the big schoolyard. He does have company of a sort. Nestled between the boy’s apartment and the building next door is a piece of land crowded with green trees. There the boy, trees and creatures that live there, keep each other company. Blackwood surprises and enlightens us as we realise the trees are more than meets the eye. Look more closely, and the tree trunks and their upper branches are alive with birds and animals. More amazing is an elephant’s head atop one of these trunks.
One day, a ‘For Sale’ sign goes up on the lot with the trees next door to the boy. The trees have an ominous ‘X’ on their trunks. The very solemn boy visits the trees and tenderly touches, tugs and hugs the tree trunk so clearly resembling an elephant’s trunk. Distressed, he sits until quietly an elephant head shaped shadow appears on the wall behind. In an inventive series of jubilant illustrations, the boy leads the now mobile trees away. Where have the trees gone, the workmen wonder the next day as they arrive to chop them down? The surprises in this book continue over the next page, when the school community marvels at the stunning landscape of trees embracing their once sterile schoolyard. A final illustration shows a budding friendship between the boy and a young girl beneath the tree now firmly at home in the schoolyard.
Freya Blackwood uses pencil for her lightly scribbled lines, loosely outlining her images while simultaneously encouraging viewers to experience their own feelings. The boy’s body stance and his position on each page gives him an immense range of emotions from sadness, fear, delight, surprise and satisfaction. These are there for the viewer to experience too.
Freya’s oil paintings are effective in generating emotions and prodding viewers to experience this very gentle story. The endpapers offer a leafy vista where nestled in the trees are birds, butterflies, snails and other creatures living comfortably in their homes. Readers are subtly reminded that we are all the caretakers of our environment.
‘The Boy and the Elephant’ was shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, CBCA Picture Book of the Year Awards and the Australian Book Design Awards, all in 2022.
‘The Boy and the Elephant’ was an Honour Book on the International Board on Books for Young People Silent Book List for 2023.
Picture Books for Older Readers
