The Only Child by Guojing
My rating: 5/5 cats
when i first saw this cover online, months before the book was released, i thought to myself, “i will make you mine.”
and then i did.
superficially, the artwork reminded me of a cutesier Shaun Tan or a less-gross Renée French. but i know nothing about art, and when i mentioned this observation to art-snob sean of the house, he scoffed and pointed to a couple of illustrations and said “shaun tan would never do that or that,” so i guess i’m wrong. sean of the house does not care for the art in this book, but i love it, so i choose this book over him.
this is a wordless picture book in which a little girl is left alone at home and decides to take the bus to visit her grandmother. she falls asleep and misses her stop, and when she disembarks, she finds herself deep in the forest with no one to ask for help. no human, anyway. fortunately, she meets a beautiful and mysterious stag,
who takes her on a magical journey where they meet other creatures
before she is eventually restored to her parents. spoiler alert, yeah, but it’s a children’s book – how did you think it was going to end?
it seems like a sweet, whimsical story, but its inspiration comes from a sadder and more haunting source. the bus and getting-lost parts are true, but the animal-intervention was not. the author is chinese, and she came up in the 1980’s under china’s one-child policy. from the author’s note:
When I was young, both of my parents had to work to support our family, so during the day, my grandmother would take care of me. But still, sometimes – if they had to rush to work or if Nai Nai was busy – they would leave me home alone. This experience was common in many families at that time. I belonged to a very lonely generation of children.
and this loneliness permeates the illustrations, even when it is – yes, sean – a little cutesy.
i just thought it was lovely, and tender without veering into saccharine
it made my heart go ba-dump AWWW!! there were genuine feels inside. i thought it was a beautiful story, beautifully illustrated, and even though it came out of her memories of isolation and loneliness, it’s not bleak – there’s so much fun to be had when you have a stag!
i definitely want to see more books from this author/illustrator. with more baby seals!
