A Fresh Point Of View

During a story time when you share a wordless picture book with children, they lean even closer to you to look at the illustrations.  They know each line, each color, each facial expression, and each element in each scene is essential and valuable. When you've read it once, your listeners will ask for it to be read again.  Then, after the second reading, the questions, discussion, and answers begin in earnest. 

Sometimes after the questions, discussion, and answers, your listeners will ask for it to be read a third time. (If you, the reader, happen to be sitting in a chair, this is when you move to sit among the children.)  This third reading signals the very real impact, the mark on their hearts, this book made.  Over The Shop (Candlewick Press, January 5, 2021) written (conceived) by JonArno Lawson with illustrations by Qin Leng is a wordless examination of human souls.  It is a poignant presentation showing us single acts of kindness can change not only our world but the lives of those around us.

Inside Lowell's General Store, in the living quarters on the ground floor, a new day begins.  A little girl wakes up, joins her grandparent for breakfast, and later her grandparent sets out produce in front of the shop.  As the child does the breakfast dishes, she notices a stray cat, a cat who tries to steal produce from the grandparent, run into the alley.  Quietly and alone, the little girl takes a bowl of food into the alley for the cat.

As the little girl colors and draws, her grandparent makes an Apartment For Rent sign.  It is hung in the front store window.  Over and over again, people, male and female, single or together, one with a dog, come to look at the apartment.  All leave quickly in disgust.  The apartment is in major disrepair.  Discouraged the grandparent removes the sign from the window, but not before a young interracial couple see it.

At first, the grandparent is hesitant to rent to this couple, but the granddaughter offers a positive opinion.  The grateful couple move in and get right to work, cleaning, removing boards from across windows, and repairing damage.  The granddaughter willingly helps.  The neighborhood pigeons and the stray cat observe these welcome alterations.

Seasons pass and more differences inside and outside the shop and apartment are seen.  The definition of family is beautifully portrayed in the final images on the final pages.  The last double-page picture, the last pictorial words of the story, depict the best side of humans, friendship, and family.

From the imaginative mind of JonArno Lawson, readers see threads of several stories unfold only to be woven into a tapestry of a more profound tale.  The characters in this story, the neighbor, the grandparent, the granddaughter, the stray cat, the various possible renters, and the final couple who reside in the second-floor apartment all have stories, individual personalities revealed to readers.  In this book JonArno Lawson tells us how generations can be bridged, how the youngest among us is sometimes the wisest, how being willing to shift a perspective can lead to joy, and how kindness heals and builds the most wonderful life possible.

When you open the matching dust jacket and book case and look at the front and back, right and left, of them, you are not initially aware of the ultimate significance of this title.  You see a little girl and an older woman beginning their day in a local grocery shop.  You do notice the cat and the resident pigeons.  

On the back are three separate images under the words:

APARTMENT FOR RENT.

INQUIRE WITHIN.

In these three illustrations we meet the final couple wanting to rent the apartment.  The granddaughter speaks on their behalf.  And the grandparent has to decide what to do.

On the opening and closing endpapers the majority of the two pages are devoted to a morning sky first and an evening sky second.  On the first pigeons are coming to roost on the roof of the shop.  The cat is crawling up to the peak of the roof on the opposite side.  On the closing endpapers, the cat is gone, and the pigeons are curled in sleep.  To continue the opening endpapers, the verso and title pages show the cat leaping at the pigeons as they scatter in flight off the roof.  

Rendered 

in ink and watercolor

by Qin Leng, these visuals are awash in emotion.  They depict realistic settings with everyday people.  They bring readers into the story.  Their alternating sizes and groupings on the pages elevate the pacing.  Each line detail, brush stroke, and color choice contribute to our participation in this story as readers. 

One of my many, many favorite pictures is on a full page.  We are looking slightly down at the scene.  It shows the grocery shop, the neighbor's home to the left, and the other building on the right side of the alley.  The neighbor is watching the new tenants, carrying luggage, walk toward the shop.  The grandparent is walking into the store.  The granddaughter is waving at the new couple.  The couple are smiling as one of them waves back.  There is much potential and hope in this illustration.

This book, Over The Shop written by JonArno Lawson with illustrations by Qin Leng, is one of those titles you will long remember.  This story is to be shared often and widely. It asks us to be our best in every choice we make.  It asks you to leave beauty wherever you walk.  You will want to have a copy in your personal collections and one on your professional bookshelves.

If you wish to learn more about JonArno Lawson, I recommend you read about him at the Poetry Foundation.  To learn more about Qin Leng and her other work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  Qin Leng has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.  At Penguin Random House you can view interior images.  At author, reviewer, and blogger Julie Danielson's Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, this title is highlighted.

Cherishing The Unwanted

Children notice the littlest details.  They are drawn to sparks of color.  They see their surroundings with their hearts.

As a parent or educator you have undoubtedly received a bouquet of spring dandelions lovingly picked and presented with pride.  Or maybe you were shyly handed a fresh bunch of daisies or black-eyed susans.  You really hoped they were found in a field rather than someone's garden.

Living in a small community or out in the country, those floral gems are easy to notice.  If you live in a city where green has been replaced with gray, it's more difficult unless you are a child.  Sidewalk Flowers (Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, March 17, 2015) written by JonArno Lawson without words with illustrations by Sydney Smith is a journey of receiving and giving, and of kindness and unconditional love.

The story opens with a little girl clothed in a red hooded jacket walking hand in hand with her father down a city street.  As he walks along with groceries in his other hand, she is looking up and down and to the left and to the right, not missing anyone or anything.  She spies a dandelion plant growing from a crack in the sidewalk next to a post.

At this point her dad is talking on his cell phone.  She walks over to the plant, picks a single flower and smells the sunshiny odor.  She continues to find these brave colorful weeds that have found a way to grow through crevasses in walls along a bridge or neglected cement embankments.

Although he waits for her, he seems to be more engaged in his phone conversation than her poesy picking.  As the business part of town turns to a more residential area, the two start to walk through a park.  In the center of the path, she sees a dead bird.  In an act of compassion, flowers are left on top of the bird.

As the father and daughter continue home, unsuspecting others may find delicate surprises left in the wake of this strolling child.  Acts of generosity without thought come from a capacious soul.  The tiniest things, bright hues and open observations can lead to gifts for everyone.


From a personal experience JonArno Lawson conceived the idea for this book.  His perceptions form not only the outing of the father and child but the course readers will follow as they reflect on the story.  The little girl does see beauty in the wildflowers and weeds but she decides to pass it along to complete strangers, to members of her family and to animals she encounters.  From her we learn to look at our world with gratitude and without judgment.


Rendered in pen and ink and watercolor, with digital editing the illustrations of Sydney Smith portray a gentle elegance.  The image on the front of the book case draws you to the characters with the red coat and the tiny bit of color in the flowers in contrast to the black and white, the parent and child walking while holding hands and the look of affection on the father's face.  It's a prelude to wonder.

Framed by fine black lines in a square we see the little girl walking at dusk on the back, a slight smile on her face as she looks at a flower in her hand.  The opening and closing endpapers are patterned in delicate flowers, birds and butterflies.  They are identical except for an addition on the closing endpapers, an extension of the story.  On the verso songbirds are eating tiny seeds.  Beneath the title common wildflowers are placed in a row.

The presentation of the story in a blend of double page, single page and framed paneled pictures is brilliant.  It allows our point of view to change with that of the little girl.  Her red hooded jacket defines her as the focus pointing us to those splashes of color, the flowers, she notices.  For more emotional impact other colors are introduced at appropriate points; in front of the fruit stand, the woman at the bus stop, the glass bottles in the store, the bird with the flowers and the home of the father and little girl. Smith's use of shadow and light amplifies the atmosphere.  Attention to detail will have readers pausing and turning back to look at particular scenes over and over.

Two of my favorite illustrations are on a single page. They are placed one over the other horizontally.   The father is walking along looking straight ahead on the park path.  His daughter notices a man sleeping on a bench.  She drops her father's hand to stick flowers into the man's shoes.


Sidewalk Flowers written by JonArno Lawson with illustrations by Sydney Smith is enchanting in every respect.  It's bookmanship at its best; the book case, endpapers, interior illustrations, the matte-finished paper and a truly beautiful story.  This is one of those stories which will prompt other stories.  It connects us all.


To learn more about Sydney Smith and his other work please follow the link attached to his name to access his website. JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith were interviewed by author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson at Kirkus.  Please follow the link to Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast to access this interview, artwork and links to two other great articles, one an interview of JonArno Lawson about this book.  More artwork can be found at Anansi.  At Groundwood we get more of the story behind the story.  Enjoy the book trailer.