posted on 20 Mar 2017

Silver Buttons by Bob Graham

This prolific prize winning author -illustrator is one of my all time favourites with his distinctive gentle cartoon like drawing style. In publicity for his books Bob Graham says ' I'd like reading my books to be a little like opening a family photo album, glimpsing small moments captured from daily lives'. The very ordinary families that he depicts always have children at the heart of the story. He tells universal stories because, although he is Australian, the urban multicultural environments in which these families live have recognisable characteristics, wherever one lives. They are rather scruffy, a bit run down but nevertheless always cosy. I think this is because he focuses on the strong relationships between family members and other people in the community. Nothing bad ever happens in these mean streets, on the contrary they are vibrant busy places where people look out for one another and rub along very well. This is not a romantic view of city life but it is a welcome change from the sometimes negative portrayal of such environments in the wider media. It also challenges the more chocolate box atmosphere of many traditional children’s picture books and so presents the reader with a more socially realistic world, where some parents are dressed in grungy style clothes and have tattoos. The landscapes include high rise flats, the streets have litter in them and shopfronts look a bit battered.

This one, with its title beautifully picked out in silver lettering, initially appealed to me because of the cover where the little girl, wearing glasses is crouched intently over her drawing of a duck in a hat. She holds a silver pen in her hand and is evidently about to add another button to his boots. A baby with his nappy which is precariously slipping down is staggering towards her, and the dog looks up at him as if he was thinking 'Yikes - I didn't know that you could walk! Please don't wreck the drawing or you will be in so much trouble!’ Somehow Graham succeeds in conveying the  necessary range of expressions of concentration, anxiety and intent through their faces and body stances that creates the tension of a successful picture book cover. 

The first double page spread tells us more about what is going on as we are taken a few minutes back to the time 9.59 on a Thursday morning, before the girl, Jodie adds the silver buttons and the baby, Jonathan is about to push himself to his feet. The dog is sleeping beside them and they are surrounded by the everyday muddle of family life in a restricted living space. Some washing is drying on a clothes rack and there are some toys scattered about, the mantlepiece has various bric- a- brac on it and a child's drawing is pinned in pride of place. We can see part of someone walking along the street through the window but otherwise there is no adult in sight.

On the next pages we learn that Jonathan's curiosity about the drawing has inspired him to take his first step. As if in a movie, the next double page spread takes us into the kitchen where we can still see the living room events unfolding through the door. This is another intimate glimpse into family life as young mum sits playing her tin whistle and we see more toys scattered all around and plenty of photos and children’s drawings everywhere. 

Then Graham begins to pull us back to the wider landscape out the house, still seeing the children and dog through the window. A bird nesting in the gutter sheds a feather which floats down and the bird flies away. The adult that we glimpsed earlier is an early morning jogger pushing a child in a buggy and slowly more people in the street outside are revealed in all their splendid variety. As the story progresses we see other poignant moments in ordinary people’s lives including a soldier hugging his sad mum as he says goodbye and a baby being born in the hospital. The bird’s eye view then allows us to see where the street fits into the town. We can then swoop down with it to the park where there is a grandad making a house of leaves with another little girl and an old lady with a shopping trolley who ' carried everything she had in two paper bags'. I'm not sure that I have ever seen homelessness depicted so starkly but with such a tender touch in picture books before, despite it being all around us in reality.

The overriding message is that many special moments in people's  lives are happening simultaneously in the town and baby Jonathan's first step is just one of them. On the last double page spread , mum rushes into the living room to witness the momentous occasion and Jodie adds the final silver button to the ducks boot. The last page shows mum fiercely hugging Jonathan watched by Jodie as the dog enjoys a good scratch. I just know that if the story continued, mum would be looking thrilled with the finished drawing, give Jodie a big hug as well and add it to the gallery of drawings. 

This is powerful story about family and community that conveys the importance of treasuring little moments and letting children know every day that they are valued and loved. It is no surprise to see that it is endorsed by Amnesty International, an organisation that states ' Every one of us has the right to experience justice, fairness, freedom and truth in our lives. These important values are our human rights'.

 

Karen Argent

 

March 2017