Children’s books

Ah, syn­chron­icity… there you are again.

Was talk­ing with e_dan earlier this even­ing about a con­ver­sa­tion I had in Perth about books for chil­dren and how the things that scare adults are things kids just take in their stride (Cor­aline was the example, because this is some­thing Neil Gaiman had talked about at Continuüm).

Then tonight, over dinner, Matt brought out this fant­astic chil­dren’s book called Rab­bits by John Marsden and illus­trated by Shaun Tan. It’s an allegory for the inva­sion of Aus­tralia, told by ring­tailed pos­sums with the bad­dies being the rab­bits who came from over the seas many grand­par­ents ago. The rab­bits are dressed in red­coats and have tall sail­ing ships.

The book gets darker and darker. You can see graf­fiti saying “might=right” on the walls in one scene. The page which says “and stole our chil­dren” is bleak. The end of it seems so hopeless.

And yet it is a beau­ti­ful book, glor­i­ous in its detail and the intric­acy of its art. The epi­tome of duende.

I think I shall be buying a few copies for vari­ous people…

And the rest of the night was won­der­ful too.