As we continue with our quest to review all the CKG shortlisted titles before the winners announcement next week, here Lorna gives her take on Sydney Smith’s illustrations in Town is by the Sea, for which he has been shortlisted for the Greenaway medal.
What the publisher says…
Stunning illustrations by Sydney Smith, the award-winning illustrator of Footpath Flowers, show the striking contrast between a sparkling seaside day and the darkness underground where the miners dig. This beautifully understated and haunting story brings a piece of mining history to life.
http://www.walker.co.uk/Town-Is-by-the-Sea-9781406377385.aspx
What we say…
I’ve have had mixed feelings about this book, it is both beautiful and haunting, and not a book for a very young audience.
We follow a normal day for a young boy that lives in a mining town by the sea. No matter what the boy does the sea and the mine take centre stage throughout his narrative, this is echoed in the illustration by the heavy use of black shading that runs through the pages.
As the boy describes his day, he parallels what he is doing with his father working in the mines under the sea. The illustration is fantastic in conveying an overwhelming sense of suffocation and claustrophobia in the mines, this is starkly contrasted to the wide open spaces and the sea in the boy’s world. The illustrations of his father’s day tell a story in themselves. I rushed to get to the end to see if he would be ok as we watch the mine slowly cave in. The ending shocked me as I was expecting the worse, but far from it the father returns, as normal, and no enlightenment is given to whatever ordeal he has been through…as this is just a normal day for him.
This book is certainly successful in conveying the perilous work that miners faced every single day and the inevitability of the narrator one day, having to face these same dangers. Yet our narrator is not bitter, or excited, it is just a matter of fact.
This book was more of a challenge than I envisaged, but fantastically written and illustrated. A proud tribute to miners and mining towns.
Lorna
See Sydney Smith talk about Town is by the Sea here: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/watch.php?id=12
Check out the full CKG shortlists here:
http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegie-current-shortlist.php
http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/greenaway-current-shortlist.php
Youth Libraries Group North West 