A Small Miracle
How to Heal a Broken Wing, Bob Graham, Walker Books, 2008.
A lone pigeon flies through a gloomy sky, head on into a bright shiny skyscraper, gleaming with reflections. Under the towering skyline, the pigeon falls and lands unnoticed while the city teems around it. Eventually, a little boy named Will, walking hand in hand with his mother, spies the fallen bird and carefully picks it up and takes it home.
Once again, Bob Graham tells a seemingly simple story, with grace, ease and good humour. The text of this book is very spare, and almost Haiku-like in its minimalism. There are plenty of gaps for the reader to fill in, with several pages free of text, and, in the best tradition, the author waits for the reader to fully observe and draw their own conclusions. The ink outline and watercolour illustrations are full of clarity and light, with the contrast of the palette used for the pictures of the outside world (grey and dreary) and Will’s world (warm and cheerful) telling its own story. By employing several ways of framing and unframing the pictures: cartoon like boxes, borderless vignettes, half-page illustrations and double-paged spreads that bleed off the page, the author/illustrator has created a visual syncopation that echoes the rhythm of the poetic language.
As a result of the pared down text, and the wealth of detail in each picture, this book needs to be read and reread many times. Like all multi-layered books, each reading retrieves more and more meaning. Simple, fun things are revealed in the detailed clutter of Will’s home: a trophy cup full of recorders and scissors, a bowl full of pencils, a Vermeer print on the wall, and a wealth of other artwork celebrating nature, most particularly birdlife, with pictures and cutouts of birds and feathers. Even the calendar used to record how long it takes to heal the broken wing, has an owl on it.
The design of this book (by the aptly named Blackbird Design) is notable, and crucial to the impact of the story. The book’s elongated portrait shape highlights the pigeon’s journey, and affords the author/illustrator many opportunities to vary the points of view; it moves from the bird’s eye view of the pigeon to the knee-high view of Will. The cloudy grey endpapers have been used to start the proper beginning of the story, as well as to conclude it. The front endpaper has the bird high on the recto page, heading towards its fate. The back endpaper (and it is the same illustration) has the healed bird flying high, back into its domain, and out of the book. Most picture books have one stand out image or line, but this book has so many unforgettable parts it is nearly impossible to separate the elements, with the book’s design imparting much to its overall subtlety. There are, of course, some dazzling pictures in this book, particularly when Will finds the bird, and when he releases it. In each picture both he and the bird are bathed in a luminous halo of glowing light, and it is hard not to think of St Francis and his birds.
The champion of the underdog (animal, people and houses), Bob Graham has always created families that resonate and reassure. While they aren’t exactly victims, they are not notably winners either, but they always triumph over their surroundings, and they never disappoint either their readers, or themselves. Will’s parents look quite ordinary, although most extraordinarily kind and loving, and their own little house like a nest. The pigeon itself is full of personality, its beady eye keenly noticing the details of both its rescuer and its temporary new home. Will himself is clearly engaged with the bird, and his parents show him how to treat it with both kindness and respect.
Family, kindness and humanity are always central themes in Bob Graham’s books. But he is not sentimental, and does not gloss over uncomfortable realities, they are there if you care to see them. The sometimes disappointing facts of life today are obvious, huge alienating buildings that dwarf the crowds of antlike people, and skyscrapers towering over a row of tiny houses and a church spire. There are many small, but powerful details like the headline declaring ‘Conflict’ on the newspaper lining the pigeon’s box, and army tanks rolling past on the television in the background. Yet despite these global maladies, a small, nurturing miracle is accomplished, and the wing is healed and the pigeon flies away. The fact that one small child can notice a bird and save it, is a metaphor for larger things, and the fact that one picture book can so capture the prevailing human spirit, is inspiring.