Tuesday Treasure
"When they got to the country they found a place where the grass was short and soft, beside a creek where they could cool their feet. They ate currant buns, cinnamon tarts, pies, peanut brittle and oranges and plums, and drank ginger beer."
I love these words and the pastel scene that accompanies them. The marvel of this book, for me, comes from the artistic interpretation by Ron Brooks. I imagine Jenny Wagner sending her words on a simple piece of paper, perhaps in a letter:
Bill had a car.
He was the only person in his street who did.
And because he didn't go to work, and spent all day playing in his garden, and because he couldn't tie a bow, nobody believed his car was real.
That's why they called him Motor Bill.
How does Ron Brooks interpret these words?
In his book Drawn from the Heart Ron explains he loved this text by Jenny Wagner especially these first lines.
Bill is a donkey. Why?
There are more details about this below.
We see a human family walking beside his flowering hedge in a beautiful rural setting.
His car is a box with straps and Bill powers his car with his feet.
Ron says, in his book Drawn from the heart, "When you think about it, isn't it odd that some one (who) has a car, must surely be an adult, yet can't tie a bow?"
How did Ron come to think of a donkey. Jenny Wagner suggested Bill was a boy between sixteen and twenty-four. Ron's publisher thought Bill was a boy aged around six or seven. These ideas didn't sit comfortably with Ron and nor did the idea that Bill was intellectually challenged. Then Ron saw this book by Emma Chichester Clark which features three young donkeys:
Ron also thought about the young donkey from the bible story and so it was settled Bill would be a donkey but what about Caroline. "Caroline is just a little more knowing, a little more worldly than Bill, and she has pluck, cheek and courage ... " He decided to make Caroline a goat.
"Motor Bill is not just a story about acceptance of 'difference' in another ... It is an extraordinarily tender story about openness and generosity, about love and trust; an exquisitely written text about recognition - about recognising genuine specialness of any kind in another, embracing, celebrating and sharing in it." Drawn from the Heart, page 175 Ron goes on to say this is a book about imagination "the making power, the creative power, of love and imagination."
You may have met the combination of Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks in three of their previous (and famous) picture books:
Looking at these titles I hope you can see the importance of keeping an older book such as Motor Bill and the Lovely Caroline which was published in 1994. It is interesting to note that just one year later Ron's book Old Pig (Margaret Wild) was short-listed for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year award. When you place these two books, Old Pig and Motor Bill and the Lovely Caroline, side by side there are so many similarities to share with an older group of students who are exploring visual literacy.
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