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Summary
Summary
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustrated Book
A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year
In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter.
"Written" by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people and small gestures.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
Author Notes
JonArno Lawson is a three-time winner of the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Children's Poetry, and the author of numerous books for children and adults, including Enjoy It While It Hurts, Down in the Bottom of the Bottom of the Box, and Think Again. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three children.
Sydney Smith was born in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been drawing since an early age. Since graduating from NSCAD University, he has illustrated multiple children's books and he has received awards for his illustrations, including the Lillian Shepard Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration. He now lives in Toronto and works in a shared studio space in Chinatown where he eats too many bahn mi sandwiches and goes to the library or Art Gallery of Ontario on his breaks.
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-An emotionally moving, visually delightful ode to the simple powers of observation and empathy. A young girl and her father walk home from the grocery store through busy city streets in this wordless picture book. Along the way, Dad is preoccupied-talking on his cell phone, moving with purpose, eyes forward-while his daughter, a bright spot of red in a mostly black-and-white world, gazes with curiosity at the sights around her. In graphic novel-style panels, readers see what she sees: colorful weeds and wildflowers springing up from cracks in the pavement. She begins to collect these "sidewalk flowers" as they make their way past shops, across bustling avenues, and through a city park. Halfway through their journey, the little girl surreptitiously begins giving pieces of her bouquet away: a dandelion and some daffodils to a dead bird on a pathway; a sprig of lilac to an older man sleeping on a bench; daisies in the hair of her mother and siblings. With each not-so-random act of kindness, the scenes fill with more and more color, until the pen-and-ink drawings are awash in watercolor, her world now fully alive and vibrant. With pitch-perfect visual pacing, the narrative unfolds slowly, matched by the protagonist's own leisurely appreciation of her environment. Smith expertly varies perspective, switching from bird's-eye view to tightly focused close-ups. The panel format is used exquisitely; the individual choices are purposeful, and the spaces between panels effectively move the story. VERDICT This is a book to savor slowly and then revisit again and again.-Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A girl in a hooded red coat walks through the city with her father. He leads her home in silence, leaving her to contemplate the world. She spots flowers growing out of sidewalk cracks. Closing her eyes and sniffing each one, she accumulates a handful, then decides they should be given away. Viewers don't see what the girl does; instead, they see the results of her work. A dead sparrow on the sidewalk is left with a reverent bouquet on its chest, the gray scene around it flashing into full color. A man sleeping on a bench gets a couple, as does a dog's collar, and when the girl arrives home, the girl's mother and siblings receive a scattering of blossoms, too. When viewers last see the girl, she still has one flower, and she's still walking. If not for Smith's (Music Is for Everyone) intelligent ink-and-wash panels, his calligraphic pen line, and his delight in sun and shadow, Lawson's (Think Again) wordless story might have been mawkish. Instead, it's a reminder that what looks like play can sometimes be a sacrament. Ages 4-7. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
A man and child stride companionably hand-in-hand on Smiths energetically composed cover; yet, once inside this wordless book, each seems to wander in a separate, inner world: while the man is listening to his phone, the child is gathering the wildflowers that spring bravely from pavement cracks -- dandelions, buttercups, lupine. Once they leave the comfortably rundown city center and enter a park, the child begins to give these blossoms away -- a few honor a dead sparrow; some go to a sleeping man on a park bench; others are tucked into a dogs collar. Man and child hold hands again, now, and walk more purposefully, to arrive at a pleasantly old-fashioned house with enough flowers left for the woman whos waiting for them, and for younger children playing in a yard alive with spring flowers and wild creatures: birds, bees, snails, squirrels. Ambiguities are subtly hinted at in Smiths development of poet Lawsons story idea -- subtly enough to elicit a variety of conclusions about whats going on in this Rorschach test of a picture book. The pen-and-ink art is well paced, with broad, assured lines in dramatic black enhanced by sweeps of gray wash; such significant details as the childs Red Riding Hood jacket, the flowers, and the home at the end appear in increasingly vibrant watercolor. A deceptively quiet book, to ponder and discuss. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A child in a red hoodie and a man on a cellphone navigate an urban landscape, the child picking flowers from cracks and crannies along the way.Best known for his nonsense verse, Lawson here provides a poignant, wordless storyline, interpreted by Smith in sequential panels. The opening spread presents the child and (probably) dad walking in a gray urban neighborhood. The child's hoodie is the only spot of color against the gray washexcept for the dandelions growing next to a sidewalk tree, begging to be picked. The rest of their walk proceeds in similar fashion, occasional hints of color (a fruit stand, glass bottles in a window) joining the child and the flowers she (judging by the haircut) plucks from cracks in the concrete. Smith's control of both color and perspective is superb, supporting a beautifully nuanced emotional tone. Though the streets are gray, they are not hostile, and though dad is on the cellphone, he also holds the child's hand and never exhibits impatience as she stops. Once the child has collected a bouquet, she shares it, placing a few flowers on a dead bird, next to a man sleeping on a bench, in a friendly dog's collar. As child and dad draw closer to home, color spreads across the pages; there is no narrative climax beyond readers' sharing of the child's quiet sense of wonder. Bracketed by beautiful endpapers, this ode to everyday beauty sings sweetly. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* A little girl in a red hooded jacket is walking with her dad on a gray street, but once she spots some dandelions growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, she starts to see wildflowers all over. Each time she notices some flowers, her father waits as she expands her bouquet. Now with a fistful of treasures, the girl decides to spread the cheer around. She places a few stems on a dead bird in the park, leaves some at the foot of a napping man, nestles a few in a dog's collar, weaves several into her mom's hair, and balances a few more atop her brother's head before tucking the last one behind her ear. Smith expertly lays out the heartening narrative in wordless panels full of loose yet expressive ink-and-watercolor illustrations that subtly and lovingly capture the little girl's joyful, breezy discovery of the wealth of color and nature around her. At first, the girl is the only speck of color in a world of inky black washes, but as she begins to notice flowers and birds all over town, Smith fills in her environment with rich and varied hues. A quiet, graceful book about the perspective-changing wonder of humble, everyday pleasures.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
GROWN-UPS MAY NEED occasional reminders, but children know that any journey can be as exciting as its destination. In three new picture books, even a casual stroll brings a world of unexpected pleasures, providing ample time for playing, bonding and spontaneous acts of generosity. In "A Dog Day," written and illustrated by Emily Rand, the nameless narrator - an impatient Airedale terrier - heads out for a walk with giddy anticipation. All he wants is to keep moving forward. But things don't go according to plan. Although he expects a direct route to the park, and a game of fetch, his owner is in no rush. They make several stops, including a hardware store, a butcher shop and a bench outside a cafe, where the man sits with a menu. The dog mopes and waits. He complains in rhyming couplets: "I really don't like this busy street. / Surrounded by people's legs and feet." His placid expression masks a growing impatience: "He always has to stop and talk. / I thought that we were on a walk!" This amusing book is aptly intended for toddlers, for whom the agony of waiting will seem all too familiar. They will surely identify with the dog's frustration at being dragged along on errands. In one scene, with the adults' legs visible in the background, the Airedale sits facing a child in a stroller: "I wonder if he's also bored/of grown-ups chatting, and being ignored?" He contends with one delay after another: "What now? We've stopped. The park's just there./I've been so good: this isn't fair!" At last he finds himself having an off-leash romp, "in the park with all my friends." He returns home tired and happy. The walk was rewarding after all. Accompanying this lively story are pen-and-ink drawings in black and white, with soft splashes of gray and blocks of stripes, dots and crosshatching. Despite her limited color palette, Rand's impressive array of textures, tones, shapes and patterns captures the endless variety of images to be found on the simplest of strolls. Bernard Waber's "Ask Me" begins on a glorious fall day as a girl and her father amble through a park. The book opens with a directive: "Ask me what I like," she tells him. "What do you like?" he says. "I like dogs. I like cats. I like turtles. I like geese," she says, spotting a skein of geese over a pond. She prompts him with another question to ask her, and another. They pass joggers, people walking dogs and children playing. They kick piles of leaves into the air. The girl is attentive to everything around her, but never loses the thread of their conversation. "Ask Me" has no plot. Nothing revelatory happens. The entire book unfolds in dialogue. No quotation marks are used; the conversation floats along the pages. Through these ordinary exchanges, Waber conveys a close, affectionate familial bond and a child's relentless inquisitiveness and energy. The daughter goes on to name more of what she likes: riding merry-go-round horses, digging in the sand, the color red, stories about bears; and what she loves, including flowers and ice cream cones - yet the father never loses patience. He clearly enjoys asking her questions, and he appreciates her delight. They are smiling on every page. At one point, he tells her why birds build nests: "So they will have a safe place to lay their eggs." The girl responds, "I knew that." "Why did you ask?" he says. "Because I like to hear you tell it." It's a wonderful moment. Next comes a two-page spread, which contains no words. Amid a splendor of vermilion, orange, gold and green, the father and daughter lie blissfully in the grass, their shoes kicked off. The scene shows them relaxed and happy to be in the presence of each other. Their walk will go on - but for now, perhaps they are pausing to reflect on all they've seen and done. Waber wrote more than 30 books for children, including his classic "Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile" series. He died at 91 in 2013, and the posthumously published "Ask Me" reminds us of his subtle humor and tremendous empathy. Throughout, Suzy Lee's polychromatic illustrations astonish. Each page bursts with color. The warmth and exuberance of these pictures - furiously scribbled landscapes using colored pencils, offset by delicate drawings of dragonflies, butterflies and more - enrich the book's poignant themes. Both visually and in its detailed narrative, "Ask Me" celebrates intense curiosity, the sensory pleasures of an autumn walk and the ways in which both parent and child benefit from exploring their community together. Also following a father-daughter stroll is JonArno Lawson's exquisite "Sidewalk Flowers," illustrated by Sydney Smith. It's wordless, but in this instance language would seem intrusive or didactic. The absence of text seems to provide a more eloquent and nuanced story, one that allows children to freely share their perceptions of the narrative. Lawson has said that he initially sketched out a rough version of the story, then left it to Smith to interpret his work. The book is based on his own experience of walking inattentively down a Toronto street with his daughter, who collected flowers to share with others. What might have been a trite, sentimental tale about the power of giving is instead something to treasure. I'd give this book to anyone with a coffee table, in a household with or without children. The girl and her father hold hands while walking down a gray urban street. The only pop of color on the first page is the girl's bright red hoodie, redolent of Peter's snowsuit in Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snowy Day." More color suffuses these pages as the pair gets closer to home. In a series of panels, the girl comes across flowers sprouting in unlikely places: next to a bicycle chained to a pole; inside a railway underpass; in a pavement crack near a bus stop; and along the sidewalk. As she picks the flowers, including daisies, buttercups and dandelions, her distracted father doesn't notice. (He's on his cellphone much of the time.) But he is always standing nearby, waiting for her to catch up. Walking along, she places dandelions on a dead bird. She leaves flowers next to a man sleeping on a park bench. She meets a dog on the street, shakes its paw and puts flowers into its collar. She is wholly absorbed in her task. Although these small gestures of kindness go unnoticed, she keeps giving anyway. Arriving home, the girl shares the rest of the bouquet with her mother and siblings. Then, in the backyard, while gazing at birds flying above, she tucks one last flower behind her own ear - a lovely daisy, just for herself. CARMELA CIURARU is the author of "Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms."