posted on 23 Mar 2018

The Mole and the Flower by Helen Marshall, illustrated by Christopher A Martin

Tiny Tree who publish this book are an offshoot of Matthew James Publishing and have been established to bring a distinctive identity to their children’s book division and so it’s wholly fitting that they should take risks with what they produce. Helen Marshall’s verse story of the old rose and the young, blind mole certainly falls into that category.

This little tale has a traditional fairy story structure to it: an old rose, coming to the end of his life, is feeling his best days are now past and no-one will want anything to do with him now that he’s little better than an unattractive weed. That is until up pops a young mole, blind in the sun and too young to understand the ways of the world. Because she’s not prejudiced by having to judge by looks and first impressions she thinks the rose is the beautiful flower described in her Braille book and the two strike up a close and protective friendship.

The rose helps the young mole through a sudden winter storm until she is found again by the rest of her family who, seeing the old rose, mock the young mole for thinking it must be the most beautiful flower. The rose is crushed by the realisation of how others must see him and all the optimism he has regained seems to drain away. But his new friendship turns out to be strong enough to survive this set-back and we are lifted at the end by the simple words of the young, blind mole he saved:

Young Mole climbed up and held Flower’s face like a cup, being careful not to fall.

“You saved me from the cold,

which was brave and bold.

You’re the most beautiful flower of all!

So, the story introduces children to notions of inter-generational friendship and to the shallowness of making judgements on people because of their age or how they look physically – all lessons on life that are to be welcomed.

I think it’s important to say that, for me at any rate, this is very much a story for reading out aloud. Once you catch the rhythm of the verse the story develops a momentum that is quite musical in its effect and I’m sure younger children will love that. I would also guess they will enjoy reading it out aloud to themselves when they read the book on their own.

Christopher Martin’s illustrations are quite unusual and strike me as rather vintage or retro – it’s a style I’m sure I’ve seen in children’s books of the 1970s and 80s. The moles reminded me in some ways of The Wombles and the illustrations for the Elizabeth Beresford books which I think were done by Margaret Gordon. Although some illustrations are full page, he does make lots of use of white space that he uses to pull forward and frame the illustrative vignettes.

 

The book is launched at the end of March and details of the launch event can be found on the Tiny Tree Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/events/116073202559808/

 

Terry Potter

March 2018