Number 84 is another picture book, hooray! I love a picture book! This time it's the much loved classic, Handa's Surprise, a tale about friendship and fruit!
This vibrant and cheery book tells the story of Handa, and her journey to her friend's village to deliver a basket of fruit. Handa lovingly packs a selection of fruit in a basket as a surprise for her friend Akeyo. Whilst walking to Akeyo's village however, the fruit is pilfered by a variety of different animals, each keen on a certain piece of fruit! When Handa arrives at Akeyo's village she gets a surprise of her own.... and I can't possibly tell you what that is, or it wouldn't be a surprise anymore, and that's the whole point of the book!
The book takes it's form from the journey Handa takes, from one village to the next, and each page shows little Handa walking purposefully towards the next page. With every page turn the journey has progressed a little further, until she finally reaches Akeyo's village. Along the way though, Handa's basket is visited by an assortment of wild characters, first a monkey, then an ostrich, a zebra, an elephant, a giraffe, an antelope, and finally a parrot. As each animal steals the fruit, in the background we see the previous animal making off with it's fruity treat from the previous page, creating a wonderful sense of continuity and reinforcing the journey structure of the book.
Illustrations, of course, play a huge role in all modern picture books, (unless of course you're reading The Book with No Pictures by B.J Novak...). The images in Handa's Surprise present a vibrant and dynamic picture of it's African setting. They are rich with earthy golds and bright blues, allowing you to image the heat of the sun, and the bright sunshine. Handa wears a pink dress with a green pattern, which echoes the colours found in her fruit bowl, and again gives a real feeling of warmth. The pictures have little hidden signposts helping us to read the story, like the retreating animals I mentioned earlier, allowing the child and the reader to talk about the images and discuss the story. The joy of picture books is that there is often more to the image than what you can see straight away, and this leads us to a closer reading of the pictures and greater engagement for the child.
The pictures can also tell a totally different story to that of the words, which is something we so often see in picture books written post Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, the parent of all modern picture books. Prior to Sendak's masterpiece, most picture books relied on the images supplementing the written text, rather than being read in their own right. These days we expect the images to be the main focus of the picture book, and for that we can thank Sendak!
The text and images clearly tell different stories in Handa's Surprise. The written text follows Handa's thought process, as she wonders which fruit Akeyo will like best, but the visual story shows the animals stealing the fruit. If the story was told without the pictures, the story, and in particular the surprise ending, would make no sense! The images and the text work together to create a double narrative, which allows for even more enjoyment of the story, as the listener/reader can see what Handa cannot, and is in on the surprise.
Overall, I think Handa's Surprise certainly deserves the accolade of 'classic picture' book. The choice of setting is very successful, allowing small children to explore another culture, through it's people, it's produce and it's animals. There will no doubt be fruits in Handa's basket that some children will never have come across before! The stars of the show however, are most certainly the illustrations which are bold and zingy, using colour in a really effective way to make this book instantly attractive. And of course the double narrative depicted through text and images makes for an enjoyable and entertaining story. I think Handa's Surprise is a must-have for all children's bookshelves!
Thanks for reading, Lx
Next up, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.
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