Bloom

From her balcony the girl can see the big house. Beneath its window grows a beautiful flower which the girl admires on her way to school. However, the owner of the house tells her to go away. The flower is the business of his gardener.

So, what happens when the flower refuses to open? The old man suggests more water, and that ‘I will have to do it myself.’  However, when that does not work, the old man resorts to shading it beneath an umbrella when the sun is a its highest. Thereafter, he tells the flower ‘how lucky it [is] to his flower and how important his job [is].‘ How might the man make the flower Bloom? What will it take?

The story is an allegory and beautifully sequenced, expanded upon and shown. I love the contrasting bold white framed pages of wonder, against the cross-hatched windows of despair. There, the old man pours everything he has into making his plant bloom. There’s such a moral to the story, but it’s dealt with compassionately and through sublime picture book story telling. Bookwagon commends Anne Booth and Robyn Wilson- Owen on creating such an empowering story in Bloom.