Picture Book of the Year, 2013, The Coat with Ron Brooks’ exquisite
illustrations from cover to cover including the end pages, is a divine experience.
The text is as magical as is the coat that the story is about.
The coat is filled with straw and stands in a paddock.
It is tight with anger and feels it’s wasted simply being the resting place of
straw and various small creatures.
What
a waste of me! it bemoans its fate.
The wind fills his arms as a man
passes and imagines it’s waving at him. He comes closer. Noticing that it is an
expensive looking coat with a lot of wear left in it, he empties the straw and
although it seems to be too large for his frame, he believes with time he can
grow into it.
Each it becomes
we. Both are no longer alone. They
set out for the town, not knowing where they were headed. The coat fills with
wind again and it carries them along over bridges and through tunnels to the
town. The coat speaks through the man.
He ends up in a restaurant that is expecting him,
and eats food which he has never heard of before. A transformation of great
proportions takes place as opportunity after opportunity is offered and
accepted. It’s as if life had been waiting for him, and there was no road
visible before the coat, that would lead him to what he was supposed to become.
The man is recognized as having talent inside him, talent that others saw but
which was invisible to the disappointed and purposeless man. The coat, which now fitted him perfectly, had
shown him how valued he could be; what his purpose was.
This story has many interpretations, depending on
who is reading it. I see it like this. Sometimes the things people want seem
beyond their grasp, or they feel that the shoes offered are too big to fit
into. Perception is everything. One should always strive for high ideals
because each person is more than they know. It takes opportunity, the right
time and the right place or person, to help you see what you are really capable
of.
Title:
The Coat
Author:
Julie Hunt
Illustrator:
Ron Brooks
Publisher:
Allen & Unwin, $24.99
Publication
Date: May 2012
Format:
Hardcover
ISBN:
9781741146059
For
ages: 5+
Type:
Picture Book
