Another book by Jon Klassen. This time, it is Pulitzer Prize winning poet Ted Kooser providing the words, but visually, House Held Up by Trees is classic Klassen. The 60′s flavoured, flat-toned illustrative style is reminiscent of the much-lauded I Want My Hat Back (minus the bear), while the story is firmly planted in the urban, or suburban, experience. Conveniently, the subject matter is apropos to my previous post on the apparent abandonment of nature and natural imagery in picture books. In a House Held Up By Trees, people do indeed abandon nature (although the illustrations remain gloriously tree-infused), but the great thing about this book, and about nature in general~it finds a way. Trees find a way. Life, in all its exuberance, finds a way, and Kooser & Klassen find a way to make this heroic story of nature exerting itself a stirring, beautiful thing.

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As the story begins, a solitary house sits on a foliage-barren landscape. There used to be trees, but the land was cleared for construction, and in the place of the trees, a perfect, green lawn. The man who lives in the house is very proud of his lawn, and he goes to great lengths to ensure that it stays free of sprouts and any of the seeds blowing in from the maple, elm, ash, hackberry woodlands on either side of his property. “Trees are not so easily discouraged, however, and every summer they would send more seeds (with tiny wings and sails) flying his way.’ As the man attends to his lawn year after year, his children play among the trees and thickly woven bushes, smelling the ‘tiny, sweet green flowers’, listening to the ‘footfalls of the animals.’ Sometimes they watch their father mow the lawn.

http://32pages.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Alone-300x216.jpgThere is a sad, wistful undertone to the first part of a House Held Up by Trees. As the children mature and move ever closer to leaving home for good, the harder the man works on his lawn, as if a perfect square of green can stave off loneliness. What happened to his wife? It is never stated. Even the children feel a bittersweet sense of loss as they stand in front of the woods next to their father’s house, but too big now to venture into the cool, secret places of their youth. Their ennui is beautifully expressed in the single leaf dangling from the hand of the grown up girl, standing in her flats next to her brother. Unfortunately, my scanner failed to capture the subtle stripes of the girl’s dress (or her flats, or many of the other gorgeous details of Klassen’s gouache and digital illustrations), so you’ll have to imagine this scene, or better yet go and pick up the book.

Time passes, the children move way, and the man leaves his home and his perfect lawn for an apartment in the city. The abandoned house quickly falls into disrepair, as it ‘just didn’t seem like a house where anybody wanted to live.’ And so, without the man to tame the creeping wildness of the land, the wind-swept seeds enter the cracked wood and broken windows of the house. From within and without, the saplings take root and grow, eventually lifting the old man’s home off its foundations.

“The young trees kept it from falling apart, and as they grew bigger and stronger, they held it together as if it was a bird’s nest in the fingers of their branches.”

Beautiful.

I am reminded of the television series, Life Without People. In the series, some unknown catastrophe afflicts humankind, knocking everyone off the planet Earth. Within hours, as efforts to control nature come to a halt, the plants move in, or rather, move back. In spite of our efforts to dominate the environment, there is something consoling in the doggedness of nature. When I lived on the third floor of an apartment building, I was surrounded by trees. In the summer, it was easy to imagine myself living in a treehouse, and this sense of being suspended in green was very pleasing to my soul. I felt uplifted, like a house in the trees.

Ted Kooser is one of the United States most highly regarded poets, serving as the Poet Laureate

Consultant in Poetry to the http://32pages.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/House-Held-Up-By-Trees-cover-300x258.jpgLibrary of Congress from 2004 – 2006. During his second term he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems, Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). He is the author of many volumes of poetry, several books of non-fiction, and one other picture book, Bag in the Wind. Mr Kooser lives in Garland, Nebraska.

Jon Klassen is one of the greatest things to happen to children’s picture book illustration since the creation of this blog (ha, just kidding.) Originally from Niagara Falls, Ontario, but currently residing in Los Angeles, the multi-talented artist received Canada’s highest honour, the Governor General’s Award for Cats’ Night Out in 2009, and Klassen’s most recent book, the brilliant I Want My Hat Back, was a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2011. His next book, This is Not My Hat (Candlewick, October 2012), is apparently not a sequel to I Want My Hat Back. Whatever you say, Mr Klassen. You’ve got my attention, if not my hat.

最近在圖書館借回來一本新書。現在雖然是大人了，但因為很喜歡和兒子一起閱讀的感覺，漸漸地自己也愛上了圖畫書。不是所有的圖畫書都單純以圖畫代替一切，適當的文字，更加起到重要的作用。這本書的名字叫做<HOUSE HELD UP BY TREES >.封面的插圖很是優美，馬上被它吸引住了。裏面的故事有點兒傷感。說的是爸爸和一對兒女從小就是住在這間屋子裏面。後來兒女長大成人，都搬到城裡居住了。只是留下爸爸一個人，每天照看著屋子和外面的花園。有一天，爸爸也非常老了。只能忍痛把屋子賣掉，因為他再沒有多餘的精力可以打理這麼大的一所房子。自己搬到城裡也沒有回來了。屋子不知道是什麽原因，一直沒有買家來購買。慢慢地開始出現不同的問題，開始腐爛了。很是奇怪的一天，周圍圍繞著房子的樹木，變成了房子忠實的守護者，甚至支撐起整所房子。就這樣，樹木一直支撐著，到了最後，樹和房子都融為了一體，再也分不開了。

看完後，有小小的感動，雖然不是什麽驚天動地的大故事。只是關於平凡到不得了的一間房子和它身邊的樹的故事。作者卻用了非常優美的文字，把那個意境完全可以表現出來。我也好像身歷其境。是的，現在的小孩子，一天天成長。總有長大，離開父母的時候。縱使我們是多麼的不捨。但他們也要繼續翻開燦爛人生的新一頁。

但是，童年時候和父母一起居住過得房屋，是否一定很讓大家回味不窮呢。不一定是豪宅一棟，或者只是非常簡陋的小木屋，那裡也記載了一家子圍坐在一起，聊天，談心，做作業，聽收音機裏傳來的廣播。爸爸在一邊讀著報紙，媽媽為孩子縫補衣裳。雖然物質上并不豐富，但精神上是多麼快樂呢。

這些時光，都會印在每個孩子的腦海中，不會忘記。

各位今天長大成人的孩子們，有空，就多回去看看父母吧。可能童年的房屋已經被拆掉而蕩然無存了，但各種的美好回憶，會留在我們的心中的。那是最美麗的家。