1. Art techniques
2. Fantasy
3. Imagination
4. Marine life
5. Migration
6. Visual literacy

Jack’s usual morning commute to school is enlivened by an imaginative flight. The city full of vehicles is transformed into creatures of the deep, and his world becomes a skyway.

Gleeson’s introductory text sets the scene until Greder’s pictures ensure that words are no longer necessary. Jack’s story begins framed as a series of narrow boxes: from the rooms of his home, to the streets. Charcoal smudginess evokes the uniform grey of the people and the smoggy city choked with traffic. The reader begins to see, with Jack’s eye, the splashes of red and yellow that hint at other possibilities for life within this landscape. These scenes, also pictured as a series of squares across the white page, imply fleeting glimpses from a bus or car window. Jack guides the reader to perceive the stream of cars and trucks as morphing into a migration of his favourite marine animals, and when they take flight, he rises with them. Yellow brake lights and red stop signs diffuse into an orange airy expanse, rendered in pastel, filling double spreads with plenty of room for the creatures to float and frolic. Jack’s posture shows him as a seated observer, with his head swivelling to show his delight - a passenger in the flow. The colour of the sky is increasingly familiar to young people living through extreme climate change but Jack, symbolising the imaginative vision that will help his generation navigate the Anthropocene, somehow renders it less frightening. His actual bus arriving brings him back to earth, but Greder has a last surprise: positioning himself as the driver of this fantasy all along.

This book won The Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year in 2002, from a shortlist that included Shaun Tan’s ‘The Red Tree’ and John Heffernan and Andrew McLean’s ‘My Dog’: a truly extraordinary year for picture books for older readers.

1. GLLI (Global Leading Light Initiatives) ‘Silent Books’, 1 February 2021, about silent (wordless) books While this book has some words, the bulk of it is wordless or silent. Here’s a great introduction to the work of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) in advocating and promoting these books. Many of their book sharing tips can be applied to all picture books for older readers. https://glli-us.org/2021/02/01/silent-books/
2. Copyright Agency Reading Australia Profile of Armin Greder https://readingaustralia.com.au/authors/armin-greder/
3. Libby Gleeson’s website http://www.libbygleeson.com.au/
4. Children’s Book Council of Australia Judges’ Report 2002 https://cbca.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/Documents/Book%20of%20the%20Year/2002/CBCA_JudgesReport_2002.pdf
5. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, ‘Rising whale numbers a bonus for Sydney’s citizen scientists’, 20 Jul 2020 https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/july-2020/Rising-whale-numbers-a-bonus-for-Sydney-citizen-scientists
6. National Gallery of Australia, ‘Project Skywhales: Every Heart Sings, Skywhale Family Flights 2021-2022’ Artist Patricia Piccinini created ‘Skywhale’ (sculpture in the form of a hot-air balloon) in 2013 – although she has her own distinctive style, these bring Greder’s flying leviathans to life https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/events/skywhales-every-heart-sings-project/
7. ‘The Red Balloon’, Oscar Winning Short Film, 18 Nov 2021, 33 minutes There is a visual reference to this film in the hands of a fellow commuter who passes Jack in the street. This classic Oscar-winning short film from 1956 is, like the book, almost wordless. Pascal’s life echoes Jack’s experiences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VexKSRKoWQY