1. Anxiety
2. Art techniques
3. Asylum seekers
4. Compassion
5. Danger
6. Detention centres
7. Empathy
8. Fear
9. Figurative language
10. Hope
11. Migration
12. Refugees
13. Resilience
14. Survival
15. War

This is an unresolved story about the impact of war on families and children, including their forced evacuation of home to life behind fences in an unfamiliar country. The combined talents of author and illustrator ensure this book lingers, worries and saddens. Phil Cummings is a master of word pictures and language that haunts, for example, ‘The cloudless sky suddenly roared like thunder. Shadows, swift and frightening, descended.’ Reflecting the words, Phil Lesnie’s art captures war’s impact—ruined buildings, families huddled in homes, people crammed on refugee boats hoping for a new life.

Phil Lesnie reveals he used pencil, watercolour paint, ‘fancy pink salt’, an old toothbrush, gouache, and the ‘unexpected swish of a cat’s tail’. These provide a great variety of textures, shapes and colours. Every page evokes strong emotions with scenes of war’s devastation, dangerous travel by boat, and life behind refugee fences. Throughout the story ominous dark objects hover in the distance and close by. What are these grey-black shapes? Lesnie explains that he envisioned them as robots, then later sentinels, as a ‘clear visual shorthand for the kind of systems that keep us cruel and complicit.’ These offer deep interpretations. Young readers will variously interpret these inexplicable objects. One explanation offered for the looming black figures is that they are symbolic of weapons of war but these may be more symbolic, representing authoritarianism and bureaucracy. Lesnie says he first saw them as robots, but then refined them to be sentinels, a ‘clear visual shorthand for the kind of systems that keep us cruel and complicit’.

‘A Boy and a Ball’ was longlisted in the 71st Australian Book Design Awards. Sarah Mitchell, book designer for this book, comments on her interpretation. She sought to craft a ‘loose painterly version of a handwritten font for the title to express the hopeful, playful innocence of the ‘boy’, even when surrounded by danger. Typographic placement was carefully considered to give focus to the dramatic visuals throughout, with staggered line breaks emphasising the text’s poetic phrasing.’

The illustrations capture the story’s emotional content through alternating dark and brilliant colours. The night sky is brightly lit by rocket fire explosions while the quietly huddled figures on the refugees’ boat are bathed in the ominous reddish glow of the rocket fire. Perhaps there could not be a resolution for this story. Perhaps there is a glimmer of a better future with the final illustration showing a young girl outside the refugees’ fence. The endpapers too suggest a new life with an open countryside with flowers, yet the oddly shaped mounds leave interpretations open. ‘A Boy and a Ball’ is a book to make you think and consider the impact of war and life for refugees.

1. KinokuniyaAustralia YouTube reading by Phil Lesnie illustrator of ‘A Boy and a Ball’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbXTJTU-OtU
2. Book Bubbles Facebook ‘Phil Cummings reads ‘A Boy and a Ball’ The author explains the inspiration for this book https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1070241873397480
3. AATE South Australia review by Fran Knight of ‘A Boy and a Ball’ https://www.aate.org.au/saeta-content/novels/a-boy-and-a-ball
4. Ragamuffin Books 23 Sept 2020 review by Sarah Rasmussen of ‘A Boy and a Ball’ https://ragamuffinbooks.home.blog/2020/09/12/pb-review-a-boy-and-a-ball/
5. Pegi Williams Book Shop Teacher’s Notes for ‘A Boy and a Ball’ https://www.pegiwilliams.com.au/pdfs/teachernotes/9781743812525.pdf
6. Momo celebrating time to read 13 Jul 2020 ‘The Refugee Experience in picture books’ including a review of ‘A Boy and a Ball’ and related Australian picture books http://momotimetoread.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-refugee-experience-in-picture-books.html
7. Aussie Kids Books 1 Dec 2020 review by Sandy Bigna of ‘A Boy and a Ball’ https://www.aussiekidsbooks.com/post/a-boy-and-a-ball-by-phil-cummings-phil-leslie
8. Phil Cummings website https://philcummings.com/about/