Emily Carr's Woo

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Canadian painter Emily Carr was a great lover of animals, and perhaps
her most beloved pet was a small, female Javanese monkey called Woo (for
the sounds she made). This book is based on some of Woo’s adventures,
including her fight with Jane the parrot when Woo slipped her chain and
attacked the bird during Emily’s absence (the two creatures were sworn
enemies), and Woo’s dramatic entrance into the Stanley Park Zoo after
Emily became too old and ill to care for her.

The book features eight full-page graphite drawings of Woo’s
escapades. The narrative scenes help to give the reader a sense of the
mischievous monkey as well as of Emily’s deep emotional attachment for
Woo and her other pets. It is the small touches, however, that bring the
text to life, as in the following description of Woo waiting happily for
Emily amid the devastation she has caused: “As the voice came closer,
[Woo] pursed up her lips for kissing.” The narrator’s voice is plain
yet warm, lively, and amusing. The reader is compelled to read on to see
what fresh disaster Woo will create.

Though little attention is paid to Carr’s painting (save indirectly,
where, for example, Woo swallows Carr’s poisonous green paint and has
to be rushed to a doctor), her portrait of the incorrigibly naughty Woo
in a dress (the climate in Victoria was chilly for Woo) adorns the
cover. A book for all children who love animals. Recommended.