The World That Loved Books

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

This unusual picture book for very small children (and sophisticated
adults) makes dramatic use of colourful, semi-abstract shapes along with
a starkly abbreviated text. The imaginative setting is “a world where
everyone loves books, even the animals,” a world where love transforms
the denizens into the objects of their books: “They became what they
read. A man reading about flowers … became flowers.” The two parts
of this sentence appear on two double-page spreads. On one page, the
silhouette of a man’s head and neck (composed of flowers) is capped
with a fantastic beret, while the neck ends in a circlet of flowers.

One double-page spread shows a rhinoceros whose body and tail are made
of butterflies. Clever use is made of larvae, the earlier stage of
butterflies. A small bird perches on the horn. The text for these four
pages is simply what follows: “A rhinoceros reading about butterflies
and caterpillars grew so many BEAUTIFUL WINGS that it made his friend
the little bird quite jealous.”

The book’s text runs smoothly (and amusingly) along, while bizarre
connections are made by the illustrations: “The horse who had read the
book about the fish enjoyed it so much, she decided to buy a copy as a
present and send it to her friend. Who found it a SWIMMINGLY good
read.” The illustrations for the latter text are spread over two pages
that are followed by a one-sentence tale of the man who received the
book on fish as a present and was inspired by it to buy a book of tales
of rabbits and chipmunks, which he sent to his friend the horse as his
way of saying “THANKS.” The horse then heads for the public library
to borrow a book about flags: “She was feeling so PROUD, waving even
at strangers.” And the final sentence? “She was one day late
returning the book and had to pay a fine.” A smiling mouse tops off
this conclusion.

The back cover holds the final page of the story, and its moral:
“There once was a world where everyone loved books, even the animals.
Everyone loved to read so much that when they read their books, they
became what they read. When they closed their books they became
themselves again … only smarter.” What would Beatrix Potter make of
this? Small children may find the works of both authors equally
beguiling. Highly recommended.