People who know me well know that I have a soft spot for the moon. Which might have been the first thing that led me to pick up a copy of a new book by Tohby Riddle, Nobody Owns the Moon. That and the distinctly urban look of the cover in beautifully muted shades of colour.
Nobody Owns the Moon opens with an arresting and evocative line: ‘The fox is one of the only wild creatures in the world that can successfully make a life for itself in cities.’ The facing illustration pictures a fox in brown cords and a shirt and jumper sitting in an armchair. Through a window we can see a city streetscape.
What follows is a quirky and whimsical story about life in a big city – told from the perspectives of two characters living somewhat on its perimeter. Clive Prendergast is a fox with a regular job and apartment and he leads his life with a confident, unassuming attitude. His friend Humphrey is a donkey, a sensitive soul, who can’t keep a job for long and doesn’t always have a fixed address. One day, Humphrey finds a special-looking envelope, which gives Clive and Humphrey the entree into a very special night on the town.
The story cleverly and sensitively conveys some thoughts on life in a big city – in a rarely found non-stereotypical way. A city can be beautiful, can be full of constrasts, and a sense of belonging in a city can be contradictory. The text is made up of a series of thought-provoking lines, and alongside the illustrations convey many subtle messages. I love the style of illustration of this book, which is mixed media and collage. On Tohby’s website, you can read about some of the techniques he uses to construct the illustrations.
Locals might recognise Tohby’s style from his regular cartoons in the Saturday Good Weekend magazine (with both The Age and Sydney Morning Herald). He’s also the author of several picture books, including The Great Escape from City Zoo.
And speaking of very urban-styled picture books, the super-stylish blog, Inchmark, is doing a series of posts this week on children’s books on New York. I can’t wait to read her recommendations.
||Nobody Owns the Moon available from Readings||