Littlelight by Kelly Canby

apoplectic

When you read this book to a group of children everyone will learn a new word: apoplectic. It means overcome with anger or furious. 

In this book we meet the people of Littlelight.  Lets think about that name - they don't live in the light - their town feels like the Dark Ages with no access to rich language, off beat music, and interesting books.  Littlelight is grey place surrounded by high walls. The Mayor loves his high walls because they give him power over his citizens. On the other side of these walls - north, south, east and west, there are people who enjoy delicious foods, they dance to their own music, the speak different languages and they read books! As the illustrations clearly show these other people have colour in their lives.

In the tradition of The Emperor's new Clothes, it takes the action of one small child to reveal the truth. One by one a small girl removes bricks from the high walls surrounding the town. Going back to the word apoplectic the Mayor is now very mad in fact he is furious. He seems to convince the town's people that the small girl has committed an horrendous crime. But then the people remember their delight as they discovered the different foods, music, words and stories. 

"The people of Littlelight looked around their town, now full of colour and light and wondered what, exactly, they were meant to be angry about."

They do still have a problem with their Mayor (read dictator) but the ingenious people of the town solve this issue in a most satisfying way.

'This little book packs some serious themes about keeping an open mind, staying connected, limiting elected authority, and the power of one person to make a positive difference.' Magpies

Kelly Canby lives in Western Australia. Here are a set of teaching notes to use with Littlelight. See inside the book here.  This is one of those wonderful picture books you could share with young children and then explore in an entirely different way with a senior Primary group. Think about themes of control; intellectual freedom; misuse of power; conflict resolution; and propaganda. You might also have some fun with fluro paints. 

You could compare this book with:

The Wall in the Middle of this Book

Little Mouse and the Red Wall

Suri's Wall - perfect for an older group

Tillie and the Wall

The King who Banned the Dark

The Book Tree

Here are two previous books by Kelly Canby:

The Book Tree by Paul Czajak illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh

Nestled in the branches of a tree, Arlo opened his book and breathed in.
Beginnings were always the best part. They smelled as if anything were possible.

Contrast this with the words of the mayor:

Books are dangerous! I don't trust them. 
They act like seeds, which grow into ideas, and ideas turn into questions.

What happened? Well a book fell on the mayor's head. So now he aims to remove all books from his jurisdiction.  Every book in every library, every house, every shop.  All are destroyed - ripped into tiny shreds. Only one single page survives blown on the wind before landing in the mud.

Without books the world becomes a dismal place. No story time at school. No recipe books for restaurants. No theatre because there are no plays. Arlo needs to solve this problem. He draws some words into the dirt and bingo he realises he can write new books! He writes about giants, dragons, a magical swan and as he reads his stories aloud a sprout comes up - it is in the place where that one page was buried. The sprout grows into a magnificent tree filled with books. Unfortunately the Mayor walks past again and another book hits him on the head. He is furious and once again plans to destroy all the books but Arlo stops him. Arlo points out all the benefits of books in their town. Five star restaurants and theatre performances. And the mayor himself starts to read a wonderful book which captures his attention and delights him.

"Books did all of this?' the mayor asked, astonished.
'No' Arlo said, as he handed the mayor a freshly picked story. 'The book was just the seed."

An excuse for Czajak to share his love of books with children, this story’s optimistic view of creativity and resistance is fairly irresistible. Kirkus

The Book Tree eloquently captures society today,making it a cautionary tale as much as it’s an inspirational one. Rashin Kheiriyeh’s oil paint and collage artwork gives a lovely crispness to the work,and brings the books to life by making them stand out against the page. Mom Read it


I have said this before but there are some publishers of children's books who always deliver quality titles - Walker Books (Candlewick US), Nosy Crow, Gecko Press, North South, Andersen Press, Tundra Books, Tiny Owl, The Chicken House, Kids Can Press, Flying Eye, David Fickling Press, Lantana, and Barefoot Books - the publisher of The Book Tree.

You can see the book trailer on the publisher web page. Here is the web site for Paul Czajak and one for Rashin Kheiriyeh. You can hear Rashin talking about her work here. She has published over 70 books for children. There are some discussion questions for The Book Tree here.

I would pair The Book Tree with The Greatest Treasure of Charlemagne the King.