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 King who banned the Dark by Emily Haworth-Booth

"There was once a little boy who was afraid of the dark."

The problem is this little boy was a Prince who one day becomes the King and on that day he decides to ban the dark.  His advisors tell him the people won't understand and that they will revolt but ...

"If you make them think it's their idea ... it might work."

So the advisors spread rumors - the dark is scary, the dark is boring, the dark is stealing your money and taking your toys. The propaganda works and eventually the people themselves demand a ban on the dark. Here is a wonderful opportunity to have a deep discussion with a group of older students about the role of propaganda and the way the King manipulates his people to follow his beliefs.

The authorities achieve 24 hour sunlight by building an enormous artificial sun. Here is another opportunity for a discussion with a group of students - what will happen to the people if it is always daylight. There is no night.

At first everyone enjoys the endless days. They even make special light hats but after a day or two everyone becomes so exhausted and so a few brave souls turn off their lights.

This is not allowed. To enforce the new daylight laws the king appoints Light Inspectors. People have to pay a fine if they dare to switch off. Of course even the King cannot sleep. The advisors suggest a big party might distract the people so they plan for a giant fireworks display.

"But the people weren't as silly as the King's advisors thought they were. Whisper by whisper they hatched their own plan."

I think you will have made the connection here - fireworks need darkness. The people unite and everyone turns off their lights and some daring citizens climb a wall and switch off the artificial sun.

"The sky went dark. The King shuddered.
'We must turn the sun back on, Your Majesty!' shouted the advisors. 'We must crush the upsrising! We must punish the people!"

I will leave you to read this book to discover what happens next.

Take a look at this review from The Bottom Shelf.

Emily Haworth-Booth has created a bit of a masterpiece here:an intriguing and compelling story that is complimented by delightful illustrations. Little Parachutes

This is a really fantastic and original story, that offers a fantastic moral lesson about balancing things out - after all how can we appreciate the light without darkness and vice versa? ReaditDaddy

You can see some of the preliminary drawings by Emily Haworth-Booth on the Klaus Flugge web site.

For younger students I would pair this book with The Emperor who Hated Yellow by Jim Edmiston.

Dog by Andy Mulligan

There are some species on this planet who 

deceive us, and enjoy doing so.

This book is tough.  It is so tough to read it took me over a week to reach the end. I  kept having to stop for a day or two to recover from the violence and emotional blackmail.  Now I guess you might be thinking NO I won't read this book but actually I am going to say the opposite - do read this book. It is so powerful and well worth riding its emotional roller coaster BUT do not skip to the end. You can trust Andy Mulligan. There should be a happy ending but the twists and turns of this journey will shock and possibly disturb you even more forcefully if you don't know the outcome.

It is interesting to think about the animal characters in this book. Spider, the puppy is good and Moonlight, the cat is pure evil but the other animals characters are harder to characterise perhaps even ambiguous. It is easy to understand why Spider is so confused.

Dog his name is Spider he is very young - only 11 weeks old when we meet him.
Thread tells him:
"Take a look at yourself little dog. You're weak, and you're skinny ... you're still lopsided and clumsy. You're out of proportion too, and you're probably not aware of it, but when you close your mouth your jaws don't shut properly. One tooth remains visible, so you look awkward."
He is a puppy, he is naive, he is trusting and he is loyal.
"He had a home. He had a name. Best of all, he had an owner who needed him - and that was simply too good to be true."

Cat her name is Moonlight. Be warned if you love cats this might not be the book for you. This cat fits the stereotype - she is manipulative, selfish, cruel and very vain. Moonlight relishes her power over Spider. She even convinces him that he might be part cat!
"... and suddenly she was beside him, pressing herself into the rough brickwork, so they were shoulder to shoulder. Spider leant against her, feeling the warmth of her fur. For the first time he caught the scent of his companion, and he was utterly confused."
"The mirrors told her she was still beautiful; there was one up ahead so she practiced her purposeful stride. There was one to the right as well, so she checked her whole aerodynamic form, adjusting her tail and lifting her hips."

Spider his name is Thread. Right from the start he tells the puppy "Spiders never lie, because it's not in their nature; we can only deal with the facts."  And yet when our puppy meets Jesse she says "You don't listen to spiders, surely?" and Flea says "It must have wrecked your confidence, because that's what spiders do. They're complete liars - everyone knows that. They make webs! They're stealthy. That's how they survive. ... They're generally sadistic, solitary and desperately unhappy. They lie for the pleasure of lying, and they feed off the misery of others."

Fox her name is Jesse. Meeting Jesse is such a relief because she is the first animal who is genuinely kind to Spider. She has no agenda. Jesse sees Spider is skinny, hungry and anxious but oddly this little black and white dog is keeping company with a group of cats. Jesse loathes these cats. Jesse is a good friend. She shares her home and food and sets off with Spider on his journey to find Tom. Sadly foxes do not do well in open country when men and dogs are hunting.

Flea has no name. It jumps onto Spider just as Jesse is chased to her death.
"... he saw the tiniest insect he'd ever seen. It had wormed its way deep into his coat, but he could still make out a greyness. It seemed to have its head jammed out of sight, but even as he watched, the little creature shifted itself around and looked up guiltily. There was a tiny spot of blood on its face, and Spider knew at once that it was his own."

The plot in essence is quite simple - a boy wants a dog, a boy gets a dog, a misunderstanding means the dog runs away, the dog survives several awful scrapes and then .... I am not going to spoil the ending.   It is the relationships that make this book so interesting. Click the review quotes below for more plot details. From this site there is a link to the first chapter as a reading sample.

I recommend this book for readers aged 11 and over - and while I rarely say this I do think this is a book that will especially appeal to boys. If you have read and enjoyed Pax then Dog would be the perfect next book.  You might also follow Dog with the Paul Jennings title A different dog. I would also recommend reading or re-reading the classics Charlotte's Web and The Incredible Journey which feature much kinder relationships between animals. Readers who enjoyed One Dog and his Boy when they were younger might take a look at Dog.

Here is an interview with the author. Here is my review of another book by Andy Mulligan Trash.

Original, thought-provoking and with a dark humour, this is an ultimately uplifting read, and very memorable. LoveReading4Kids

This edgy, unsettling story features talking animals and their various relationships with the human world. Books for Keeps