A Life in Pictures and Words

Fearless: The Story of Daphne Caruana Galizia by Gattaldo (Otter-Barry, 2020)

When a picture book is published these days I'm always delighted, but it's only a very few that really enter my heart. Fearless: The Story of Daphne Caruana Galizia is one of these: it coruscates in the way it tells this true story. At once there is a deep, strongly-felt passion for the woman that shines out brightly from the forest of other stories about the individual's lone voice, their persistence, their self-belief against adversity; there is also - not overtly, but still there below the surface - the roaring anger about how something so good and so beautiful could be taken from us.

Daphne was a journalist. She fought against injustice and lies. Her real-life story here told in pictures and words focuses on what we can all learn from her example: how our childhood dreams can be fulfilled, the intense place reading can carve out in our imaginations and hearts, the need to think and to ask questions. As Daphne grows up, still her example shines through to us: work hard, love each other, keep fighting the good fight. 

Pictures throughout the book depict a hazy balance between the real world and Daphne's extraordinary, vibrant imagination. Some pages show exactly what was happening in her life - playing with her children while her smiling husband looks on, for instance.  But others turn more surreal: Daphne standing waist-deep in a sea of fish, her pages and pages of written words typed out onto a swirling, almost endless stream of paper, and then that very paper metamorphosing into the snaking necks of a political hydra on the next page. We feel close to Daphne this way, maybe not consciously, but we are seeing the world as she did, stepping from the imaginative, thoughtful world of her creation, into reality, and back again. We're learning what it was like to think and see as Daphne did.

The picturebook story ends with the words, 'Daphne's writing travelled the world and inspired more and more people to speak out. Daphne had persuaded others to continue her work...and make our world a better place' and we can leave it there - the picturebook has done its work to inspire and engage and - most importantly! - to make the young reader think. But then we turn the final page and in an almost painfully brilliant flash we step out of the picturebook and into the reality of our heroine's story. 

Words tell us that Daphne was murdered, her story was cut short. 

But pictures tell us something else too, something that is Daphne's real legacy. We see Daphne smiling out at us from sharply coloured photographs, the soft pastel images of the rest of the book thrown into stark relief. Here is Daphne at the zoo with her three children, her mother, her sisters; calling out to us here - on the same page as the words that reveal the horrible truth - is family, connections, love. 

There is also a letter from the author who, having shaped words and crafted pictures so carefully and thoughtfully to get across these deep truths about his beloved friend, has the final word. For him, Daphne was a gift, listening and talking to her was a gift, being part of and writing her story was a gift. Now he shows us that, for us, this book is the same kind of thing. 

Become friends with the book, listen to the truth of its messages, hold this story in your hands and heart.

Daphne would be so proud.  

 

Fearless: The Story of Daphne Caruana Galizia is published by Otter-Barry on October 8th 2020

With thanks to Gattaldo for his support in the preparation of this blog and for supplying the pictures. lllustrations by Gattaldo. Author photo by Antonella Muscat.

*Not* a Bed of Roses

"Just One of Those Days" by Jill Murphy

(Macmillan, 2020) 

Life is not always a bed of roses. 

In fact it's more like the untidy, strewn-with-crayons, home-to-half-drunk-cups-of-coffee bed that presents itself on the cover of Jill Murphy's truthful and honest picture book, Just One of Those Days.

You may already know the family who are seen waking up in that bed. In fact, the story that began in Peace at Last all those years ago here continues straight away with the ominous words: 'It had been a long night...' as dad stretches wearily to turn off the alarm while mum can barely open her eyes. The sky outside is grey, the trees bare, the light gloomy. 

Mum and Dad sleepily get themselves ready for work. Baby Bear is allowed a few moments more of his dream of dinosaurs but all too soon even he has to face the reality of day. 

And what a day it turns out to be: miserable weather, upsets in the nursery, coffee upsets in the office...even Mum's blueberry muffin treat can't be properly enjoyed. The whole family experience a lot of problems that we're all familiar with...and would equally prefer not to have to face!

But there is comfort to be found in family. After all the troubles that Life has thrown the Bear family that day there's a pizza treat and comfy pyjamas and flaking out on the sofa: Life's simple pleasures that are often forgotten. The wonder of this picture book is its invitation to slow down and think about the things that our own lives offer that are sometimes taken for granted. As much of the book is about the little joys as it is about the down-sides: this symmetry is so important to recognise and the structure of the book reflects it beautifully. 

Murphy's illustrations engage us in making time to consider the everyday in new light, rather as Janet Ahlberg's do: there is the same warmth and realism. In both artists' work the fairy-tale fantasy acts as a foil to what is ostensibly very real and very familiar - ultimately what fairy-tale is all about, in fact - while the tiny domestic details they include make for instant appeal. Look at how Baby Bear's salad differs from mum and dad's at the end of Murphy's book, for example: What does that tell us? How do we relate? 

It's been forty years since Peace at Last, but here the bears wake up to reveal their story as fresh, timeless and as universal as ever - Life may not be perfect; but what we make of it can be just that.