AFTERWARD, EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT

The post title above is the title of a remarkable new picture book. Powerful, right? Also, a pretty bold claim. What could happen, when and how, that would really change EVERYTHING? From the title alone, a few events in history come to mind...

For example, the first nuclear blast, or specifically the first time an atomic bomb was dropped on a human population. After that, everything really was different, in the scope of HUMAN HISTORY.

How about the first European landings in North America and the Caribbean islands. That would not have made such an instantaneous change as the destruction caused by an atomic bomb, but, over time, it certainly shifted the history of western civilization. Colonization and empire building did not begin or end with that event, but it certainly pulled back the curtain on a massive new arena for human and cultural destruction. 

There are other events, arguably, that might well have made EVERYTHING DIFFERENT, Afterward, but most that occurred to me were in a time and place for which documentation was possible. Granted, the documentation was not always fair or accurate or even complete, but research about such events could be (and has been) done to identify more of the whole truths.

Greystone Kids, 2024
Informational Fiction 

In the case of this remarkable new picture book, a fictionalized but documented event occurs within one nuclear Stone Age group. Since this prehistoric period does not offer ANY form of text accounting, recounting the event through wordless text is especially suitable. The facts about such history are directly determined by the artifacts/images still in existence. AFTERWARD, EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT is the product of an established creative team, Rafael Yockteng and Jairo Buttrago. Other noted reviewers have called this new book thought-provoking, intriguing, and important. I add my endorsement to all of those descriptors, as well as adding my reactions below after reading closely for several days. 

I say"reading closely" despite the fact that this is wordless book, until the final turn provides a single page of text to offer historic context and research validation from which this story emerged. That explanation is minimal, and "readers" of the visual narrative will find more or less in it depending on their own background information. That doesn't mean even the most naive readers won't be captivated by the dramatic events and images as well as the characters portrayed. 

In my case I noted the seemingly incongruent humanoid types within this "family". Recent research has revealed errors in the assumption that what were identified as varied "stages" of pre-homo-sapiens fossils must have lived at distinctly different time lines in distinctly different locations. Instead, current fossil and archeological findings show that the varied subspecies likely lived simultaneously, could have interbred, and likely did. That accounts for the ways in which this small working unit of folks do and don't resemble each other inn anatomy, body hair patterns, and more. Cooperation and hunting techniques also reflect scientific evidence of actual communities. Tools and techniques are even more examples of ways in which this wordless book allows audiences young and old to experience daily life, vicariously, within such a group.

The book design offers up a multi-page opening act prior to then title page. In those scenes we meet the group, expoerience hardships (even fatal ones) within a harsh terrain, including active volcanoes and threatening climate elements. The Megafauna (giant animals) are fur-covered and resemble supersized animals of today, vaguely. The roles of different members of the group suggest both planning and intense cooperation as well as details indicating that these are hunter/gatherers, Everyone has a role (except for the two small naked children, whose behaviors are worth noting) including the young person who seems to always be noticing the creatures and drama of their journey. The black, white, and greyscale double-page spreads flow beyond the edges of the pages, suggesting a sprawling imagined landscape of enormous proportions (with potential threats at every turn). This stark approach to the visual storytelling is effective in lending a sense of time long past and its sharp-edged reality, not unlike archival photos. 

I won't spoil the story by recounting individual challenges and hardships depicted, but I must report on the superb central story. This observant child finds herself compelled to record their environment and adventures (and survival) on cave walls. The resolve, once she does so, opens readers to the fullest sense of how that single creative act did, in fact, make everything different. Using the technique of wordless storytelling allows readers to imagine the unfamiliar communication among this prehistoric group. Did they rely on grunts and gestures, minimal naming words, or drawing in the dirt to indicate plans for a hunt, directions of their journey, even decisions to hunker down due to weather conditions or time of day?  Any of those approaches, or a combination of them, is likely. Evidence of such communications have been found even though written text . But the final spreads suggest that storytelling, with some more sophisticated language skills, likely developed in tandem with then visual preservation of their life stories. That scene also suggests that something beyond survival and cooperation might have evolved during the same stages of history.

This is heartwarming, mind-blowing, and question-generating. It is deeply rich with detail and nuance, as much so as any later masterpiece. I encourage everyone to make an effort to get this book and examine it closely- multiple times. I predict you will be different after you read it.

Drawing Outdoors: A Perfect Time of Year

 The creative pair behind a recent book are new to me, but I now have my eye out for anything else they have created and will continue to produce. Author Jairo Buitrago is an award winner and is based in Mexico City. Rafael Yockteng has been illustrating acclaimed/awarded picture books, too, and currently live sin Bogata, Columbia. I appreciate the publisher, GREYSTONE KIDS,(An Aldana Libros Book) for this deft and artful translation to English. Both the story and art reflect a  seemingly non-USA setting, but the characters, circumstances, imaginations, and inspirations are so global, so universal that every child will be able to enter the experiences fully.

GREYSTONE KIDS, 2022

So, let's get to it. This new book, DRAWING OUTDOORS, has already been widely praised. I welcome this opportunity to add my voice to those accolades. Just as the art incorporates depth, crisp lines, lush colors, and familiar details (like a dog lifting its leg on a bush), the text presents the story directly and deliciously.

"Our school has almost nothing. A blackboard, some chairs. It has a teacher. She's always there. She stands in the doorway and waits for us every morning."

Not every reader will attend school in a small, hilltop building with red tile roof, arriving on converging dirt trails, alongside a river, tucked between green mountains. (Some WILL, and they will thrill to seeing their own familiar but rarely-portrayed school setting in a picture book.) Many, regardless of urban or other experiences, will identify with those opening lines above. 

And children everywhere will be tagging along with that teacher says lessons will be OUTSIDE today, snatching up their paper, crayons, and explorers' spirits to join the fun. What might have been a delightful example of children doing open-air nature art, or science observations (as in this prior post), or even a mapping exercise, turns out to be an expansive lesson in imagination. (The more mundane possibilities had been my prediction, so I really appreciated the imaginative developments that followed.)

In fact, with continued roaming, pausing, and specific prompts, these very diverse students spend time   seeking, finding, then sketching or painting a series of dinosaurs along the river bank, weaving through boulders, roaring in a wooded area, or flying through the darkening skies. Eventually they take a snack break while resting on "a branch as big as an ankylosaurus". Even during the snack scene we see that this "group" is composed of charmingly diverse individuals, friend and sibling pairs, and personality patterns that disrupt any sense that we readers would DARE to bring stereotypes or assumptions to our perceptions of communities outside our own narrow perspectives.

And yet, just as author John Schu took a more conventional approach to "school" in his recent book (reviewed HERE), regardless of the building or location or number of staff, WHAT IS A SCHOOL? can be answered as it can be here: SCHOOL is a place to look, listen, learn. To find safety, care, and inspiration.

And it should  always a place to find ourselves connected to others from every background.

With an expanding effort to "ban" books beyond narrow parameters, books that reveal what a wide and glorious world exists outside ourselves, even such a simple book as this might find itself questioned because of its definition of "school" or "learning" or even community. If you have opted to ignore this issue or feel it is one too many straws on your overburdened life, please consider reading this article. I'll appreciate it if you do.