posted on 22 Jan 2018

Soonchild by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Alexis Deacon

This is a strangely compelling story which, at first, I found quite difficult to tune into. Fascinating as folk tales can be, I usually steer away from them in favour of less mystical stuff and this might explain why this one has been sitting on my pile of books to read for several years. I can remember buying it because I was intrigued by the beautifully soft image of a polar bear on the front cover drawn by Alexis Deacon, an illustrator that I admire

Once I started reading I realised that it isn’t actually a folk tale as such but builds on a belief in the spiritual power of the Shaman figure that continues to influence the traditions of many cultures.  The story centres around Sixteen- Face John who lives with his wife, No Problem, somewhere in the cold northern hemisphere. He is the local shaman, a role which has been passed down in his family for generations. Despite the advantages of being able to communicate with animal and ancestor spirits, he is pretty off hand and lazy about it all, preferring the easy life eating pizza and drinking Coca Cola. He gives advice to people about hunting, healing and suchlike when asked and his parents and grandparents have taught him how to make links with the dead and the unborn and how to use dreams, trances, magic songs and trances but he lacks enthusiasm for the job. That is until he is about to become a father to their first child, a “soonchild” which wakes him up to his responsibilities. The problem is a considerable one because  he/ she doesn’t want to be born until John has completed his quest to find the mysterious ‘World Songs’ that entice all soonchildren to leave the comfort of the womb to try their luck in the outside world. The lyrical language helped me to suspend my disbelief and to become entranced. After all, who couldn’t resist entering a story when it is so well- told from page one: 

There’s a north where the white wind blows, where the night wind wails with the voices of the cold and lonesome dead, where the ice bear walks alone and he’s never lost. Where the white wolf comes trotting, trotting on the paths of the living, the paths of the dead. Where the snowy owl drifts through the long twilight without a sound. Where the raven speaks his word of black.

John’s long and difficult quest involves him in plenty of shape shifting and moving through time at an alarming rate having nail biting adventures along the way. He learns deep and troubling truths about life and death and grows in wisdom and confidence so that when he eventually returns to his family, Soonchild ‘ popped out with a zoopity doo’.  

The soft pencil drawings throughout add interesting texture to this curious story, perhaps because they are so gentle in contrast to the sometimes harsh events. Deacon manages to convey the general weirdness of the situations that keep cropping up and is never fazed. He manages to  depict terrifying encounters with whales, ghost wolves and Snowy Owl Spirit children and in some parts of the book, the pictures take over completely because John ‘could no longer think in words, there were only fast- shuffling pictures in his mind …’.

Russell Hoban has written more than 50 acclaimed books for children such as ‘ The Mouse and His Child’, ‘Bedtime for Frances’, and ‘The Sea Thing Child’ and I have no doubt that this one will also become a well- loved classic. This is an extraordinary book which is difficult to do justice to in a short review such as this. I strongly recommend that you spend time immersing yourself in the story and the dream like illustrations that border on nightmares.

Karen Argent

January 2018