Feather

Chinese author Cao Wenxuan and Brazilian illustrator Roger Mello join forces to explore the journey of a feather in this contemplative, philosophical picture-book. Overhearing a girl wondering what bird species she comes from, the feather begins to wonder herself, asking every bird she encounters

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if she belongs to them. Meeting a wide variety of avian life, from the vain peacock to the kindly skylark, the indifferent kingfisher to the fierce hawk, the feather finds no one who will claim her, until one day, landing on earth, she sees a mother hen...

Originally published in China as 羽毛, Feather is a book that immediately stands out, from a visual perspective. It is a short, oblong book, much wider than it is tall, and features an initial section of pages that are not as long as the final section. The pages themselves are of vivid hues, and feature stylized depictions of the feather, and of the birds she meets. The background color of each page, in the initial section, stands in stark contrast to the deep green of the first page of the second section, which is partially visible, and which shows the feather, and the skylark who is kind to her - the skylark who is killed by the hawk. I found the artwork and book design here striking, which did not surprise me, as I have encountered Mello's work before, in such titles as You Can't Be Too Careful! and Charcoal Boys, and have always found it interesting. The story was unexpectedly moving - unexpectedly, because I didn't think I could enter into the feelings of a feather, which initially struck me as an odd choice, when it comes to the anthropomorphization of objects and/or animals. Still, move me the story did, and I was struck by the author's comments, in his brief foreword, about the feather's journey being symbolic of the human journey.

Both Cao and Mello have won the prestigious Hans Christian Anderson Award, given every other year by IBBY (the International Board on Books for Young People) to the author and illustrator who has made a "lasting contribution to children's literature," so perhaps it should not surprise me that this book spoke to me, given the undoubted skill of its creators. That said, I have a fondness for philosophical picture-books. I'm not sure, on the other hand, that young children always do as well, and I'm not sure how appealing this would be to them. I think I would have liked it myself, as a young girl, but I was raised on books like Hope for the Flowers, which is very different in style to this one, but has a similarly philosophical bent. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I'd recommend this one to picture-book readers who also like such tales, as well as to anyone interested in Chinese and/or Brazilian children's literature.

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