The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Begins

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness (2008) ~ Colin Thompson is the author and illustrator.
This view is on the inside of the book just before the story begins.


Opening words:

George lived alone with his grandmother and an empty place where his mother and father should have been. 

George’s grandmother was a kind lady, but she was very old and the two of them spent most of their lives on different planets.


Comment:
Clearly from the opening words, the young boy has a very deep, hollow sense of loneliness that needs filling with love quite urgently.


Linking to:
Book Beginnings on Fridays

The Red Piano Begins

The Red Piano ~ Andre LeBlanc. Wilkins Farago. 2008. Australia.
Illustrated by Barroux

To Zhu-Xiao-Mei, the virtuoso pianist who, in April 2007, told me her story and encouraged me to interpret it with 'imagination' for the children of today. - A.L.


Opening words:
Zhangjiake Camp 46-19 on China's border with Inner Mangolia is blighted by an eerie moonlight. 
In the hut, the cramped rooms reek of warm sweat, the foul smell of extinguished coal fires and packed earth. Crammed together, the comrades are already sleeping on the bare ground. Taking small, careful steps, the young girl leaves the communal house.

Comment:
Always love a few brush strokes of history in a tale - especially dark history!

Manual labour
Children re-educated
Cultural madness


Linking to:
Book Beginnings on Fridays

The Red Poppy Begins

The Red Poppy (2012) - David Hill
opens with the words:
Jim McLeod wrote to his mother and his sister Edith. He said nothing about the day to come, nor the mud and the rats. He didn't mention the piles of stretchers waiting for the dead and wounded.




Even in war time
Even when the winds are sour
Somewhere is sweetness




I wrote a poetic review of The Red Poppy HERE!

Linking to:
Book Beginnings on Fridays

The Midnight Zoo Begins

The Midnight Zoo (2010) - Sonya Hartnett
opens with the words:
If the old bell had been hanging in the steeple it would have rung to announce midnight, twelve solemn iron klongs which would have woken the villagers from their sleep and startled any small creature new to the village and unaccustomed to the noise. But the bell had fallen from its height weeks ago, and now lay buried in silence beneath rubble; no small creature foraged in corners, because every scrap had already been carried away in beak and mouth and paw; and no woken villagers lay grumbling, for the people, like their bell, were gone.

In my last post, Poetry of the Midnight Zoo, I wrote a poetic review of this book.
But that opening still haunts me.


The fall of the bell
Like the fall of living souls
Like a parched silence


Linking to:
Book Beginnings on Fridays