First Opinion: Art, Metaphor, and More Questions Than Answers (original) (raw)

In a recent dialogue in Time magazine, award-winning authors Matt de la Peña and Kate DiCamillo concluded that exploring challenging, dark, sad truths about the world is an important part of writing for young people. Yet, DiCamillo wondered, "How do [authors] tell the truth and make that truth bearable" when writing for children? In many ways, Oliver Jefferies's book, The Heart and the Bottle, reads as a response to that challenge. The book explores universal themes of love, loss, and healing through the story of a young girl who loses a cherished older loved one, presumably her grandfather. After this loss, "the girl thought the best thing was to put her heart in a safe place. Just for the time being. So she put it in a bottle and hung it around her neck" (Jeffers unpaged). The cost of such safety, of course, is the girl's separation from her own heart. Only after growing up and encountering another passionate, curious little girl does she realize the toll this arrangement has taken on her, but she doesn't know how to fix it. The new little girl, however, finds a way to get the heart out of the bottle and returns it to her, reawakening her interest in the world. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the book is the art. Thick pages display a vibrant mix of gouache, watercolor, collage, and digitally created images, many of which float as visually rendered thought and dialogue bubbles that give insight into the characters' minds and conversations. The repeated scribble detail used to indicate shadow adds depth, texture, and a fitting childlike energy to the visual story. The busy collage style of the book's cover reflects the rapidly flowing curiosity the little girl possessed at the beginning of the book. This stands