I'm starting my February picture book posts with some long overdue reviews of books I was sent before Christmas! The first of these is The Wall, by Jessie James and Catalina Echeverri
Tom loves to explore and dreams of one day seeing a real jaguar. But the adults he lives with are less adventurous. They are worried about 'monsters' in other parts of the world, and decide to build a wall to keep them out. Life inside the wall is safe, but it is also grey and dull. Then one day, a paper aeroplane arrives that changes everything...
This is a really lovely picture book that celebrates the joy and love of living as part of a global community. It's a story that warns against fearing 'otherness' and celebrates different cultures and ways of life. Instead of putting up walls to keep people who are different to us out, The Wall shows the amazing experiences that come from letting others in and learning from them.
Echeverri's use of colour is really clever. The pages before and after the wall are full of bright colours and energy, but this colour slowly vanishes as the wall goes up, leaving only beige until the little girl from beyond the wall arrives and colour creeps back in.
Thank you New Frontier Publishing for sending me a copy of The Wall for review
The Wall is written by Jessie James and illustrated by Catalina Echeverri
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