Hope is the Thing by Johanna Bell illustrated by Erica Wagner

This book - Hope is the Thing - is one that should be added to all Primary school libraries here in Australia - the collage illustrations are fabulous of our iconic Australian birds. It is a brand new book just released this year. 

I was talking to a colleague today about our new English Syllabus for our youngest students in Kindergarten, Grade One and Grade Two.  The units of work are built around concepts - I have talked about this in a previous post. One of the concepts is representation.  Looking at the official definition: Representation is ‘the depiction of a thing, person, or idea in written, visual, digital, performed or spoken language and conventions’ and the unit outcome: "Students investigate amazing animals to learn that objects, people and ideas can be represented in different ways. This could include reflecting the natural world as realistically as possible, imagined worlds, or a combination of both" I take this to mean, in part, taking a closer look at the illustrations. 

The Grade One unit uses an Eric Carle book. I thought the focus text for the unit of work was Animals Animals (1981) by Eric Carle by (post edit) I now discover it is a different book - see below.  In the book Animals Animals there is a page with a poem about the elephant.

Here is the poem on the elephant page by Arnold Sundgaard.

The elephant is quite a beast

He's rather large to say the least

And though his size is most impressive

The elephant is not aggressive

He never throws his weight around

Still he always holds his ground

He only wants to feel secure

Long may the elephant endure

And here is the collage illustration by Eric Carle.

In fact the focus text is this Eric Carle book:

I can't find an image of the elephant page but I imagine it is very similar to the one from Animals Animals. You can see the elephant on the book cover above. Eric Carle's Book of Amazing Animals (2021) is a non fiction book not a poetry book but teachers could use both texts. 

I'm not able to access the supplementary texts teachers can use with these units of work but I do know the list suggests taking a look at Elmer by David McKee. He certainly is a very different representation of an elephant! Teachers might extend their reading to include other Elmer books (there are so many - my favourite is Elmer on Stilts). 

Hope is the Thing could be another book to use for this concept of representation. Inside you will find the ibis (there are lots of terrific books about the ibis); magpie; pelican; and owl (check out this post with examples of owl illustrations).

I talked about kookaburras in a previous post. Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher and creative consultant to storytellers. Her collages are inspired by the natural world and are made by layering and repurposing discarded paintings and sketches. While Erica has worked as an editor and award-winning publisher of children's books for many years, Hope is the Thing is the first picture book she has illustrated. 

Here is the collage kookaburra by Erica Wagner. 

Image source: Victorian Artists Society

Students could compare this representation of our iconic bird with the book from the Nature Story book series illustrated by Tannya Harricks.

I found a terrific factual description of the kookaburra from the San Diego Zoo containing rich language:

It has a light beige or white head and breast with brown wings and back. The head has a brown stripe like a mask crossing each eye. The beak is heavy and boat-shaped. The kookaburra’s breast has pale gray, wavy lines, and the outsides of the wings are speckled with pale blue dots. The male laughing kookaburra often has blue above the base of the tail.

The text for Hope is the Thing was inspired by a poem by Emily Dickinson. Here is an extract:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -