Love Grows Love

When another being is close enough to share the air you breathe day after day for years, they are a cherished companion.  They are a part of who you are.  Your days are defined by the experiences you have together.  Others identify the two of you as parts of a wonderful whole.

When, for more than one reason, you are separated the world feels in a word, wrong.  The sense of loss makes it hard to breathe.  In The Rough Patch (Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, August 14, 2018) written and illustrated by Brian Lies this missing, essential element in a life is portrayed with gifted awareness.

Evan and his dog did everything together.

Their days were full of play, tasty treats, melodies and singing and all sorts of memorable travels.  Day and night, winter, spring, summer and fall, they did it all . . . together.  Their favorite place to be was Evan's garden. 

This was no ordinary garden.  Oh, no.  Once something was planted here it grew and grew and grew.  It was magnificent.

One day Evan discovered his dog was not sleeping in his bed.  He was resting in death.  In a corner of their beloved garden, Evan buried his dog.  And everything shifted.

In his grief Evan no longer desired to be in the garden.  In fact, he destroyed it.  Cleared ground is an open invitation for seeds.  Weeds grew in place of his fabulous vegetables.  They fit his mood perfectly, so he gardened with these undesirable intruders.  Sorrow flourished.

Seeing a vine with

prickly stems, fuzzy leaves, and spidery, twisty tendrils

creeping under his fence, he was tempted to get rid of it but it, too, suited this dreary plot.  Giving it his usual care day after day, something happened, a big something.  Evan loaded up his truck, heading to the Fair.  On this day Evan felt another shift.  Nothing was going to be the same.


No matter how many times this book is read, if you've loved and lost, you will share in Evan's heartbreak.  Brian Lies writes using declarative sentences, brief but profoundly true.  He builds the relationship of Evan and his dog with sweet simplicity so when the dog dies we can't help but shed tears.  We know exactly of what he speaks.

When Brian tells us about Evan's destruction of the garden they loved, we understand completely.  As Evan helps the weeds to thrive the genius of the book's title becomes abundantly apparent.  Most of us have suffered a rough patch but how many of us have literally helped one to grow? 

The introduction of the vine is a subtle alteration in the story.  We can feel something other than a vine growing.  It is an expectation of a change for the better.  Here are two passages from the book.

If Evan's garden couldn't be a happy place,
then it was going to be the saddest
and most desolate spot he could make it.

And soon it was. 


When first opening the dust jacket readers are treated to a soft blue sky extending from left flap edge to right flap edge.  The snow white fence continues along the bottom.  An evergreen, a perch for a crow, tilts on the left side.  Nearby sticks act as braces for a bush.  Along the top edge of the sticks, a pair of scissors and a trowel hang to discourage unwanted nibblers. Evan is intently sculpting with his clippers.  On the far right a rake is propped against the fence.  This is a peaceful scene.  It gives no hint of the interior.  Is it before or after the conclusion?  (I am working with an F & G generously supplied by Brian Lies.)

On the title page, once again Brian, asks us to extend our thinking.  It is a breathtaking view of clouds in autumn at the close of a day.  Trees with leaves turning colors rise above the white fence surrounding the garden.  Evan's garden appears to be as it was in the beginning.  We are close to Evan as he gazes to the right.  Behind him is a large, large fruit (vegetable).  Toward the bottom of the fence is the shadow of Evan's dog. 

Created with

acrylics, oils, and colored pencils on Strathmore paper

each image is stunning, a beautiful study of light and shadow and shifting perspectives.  The use of color plays heavily in supplying a mood and depicting emotions.  Some of the pictures span two pages and others are loosely framed and grouped together on one or two pages.  Brian may inset one visual into another.  His use of white space will have you gasping.  The picture of Evan leaning over his dog's bed will break your heart in two.

I want to address the point of view seen from illustration to illustration.  We are drawn into the image of Evan leaning on his shovel, thoughtfully looking at his dog's resting place in the garden.  The line of the shadow invites us.  When Evan digs up everything in the garden, on the left he is carting armloads to a compost pile.  On the right a spading fork is so close; it's as if we are standing next to it.  On the day the vine comes beneath the fence the vine fills those two pages.  We see the shadow of Evan's hoe.  All we see of Evan are his garden boots with holes for his paws' claws. 

One of my many, many favorite illustrations (I love all of them.) is of Evan at the fair.  It is a two page picture.  It is bird's eye view of an expanse of a certain kind of fruit gathered together. They are all huge.  A pathway winds between them.  Foxes of varying ages are walking on those paths.  Evan is speaking with two other farmer or gardener friends leaning against these prime garden-grown specimens.  It's when we know Evan is easing into a new normal.  We can hear the murmured conversations and feel the crisp autumn air.


Once you read The Rough Patch written and illustrated by Brian Lies you will read it again and again and again.  It allows us to understand how heartbreak can be healed.  It is simply one of the best books on loss.  I highly recommend it for your personal and professional collections for the excellence found in the text and illustrations. 

To learn more about Brian Lies and his other work, please follow the link attached to his name to access his website. At the publisher's website you can view interior images. At The Horn Book Brian talks about this book.  Brian visits author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson's Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast to talk about his process art.  Brian writes a guest post about The Rough Patch at 24 Carrot Writing. 

Rescued

For those who know me personally and for those who only know me virtually my love of dogs is apparent to all.  When I say I love dogs, I mean there has never been a human being as wonderful as any of my four dogs.  If I should meet a human who surpasses the pure generosity, compassion, loyalty, love and joy of a dog, then surely there is reincarnation.  A dog must have been sent back in the form of a human to show us how to better live our lives.

Even before I read the first page of the first chapter of Patricia MacLachlan's new title, the book found a permanent place in my heart.  Here is what I read:

Dogs speak words
But only poets
And children
Hear
---P. M.

If I never went on to read the rest of The Poet's Dog (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, September 13, 2016), I would have been satisfied with those four lines.  But I did read the book...again and again.

I found the boy at dusk.

The individual speaking to us is a dog.  The boy he found is lost in a blizzard; so is his younger sister.  They were left in a car by their mother who sought help.  Someone else told them the car would be towed for the plows.  Frightened they venture out looking for their parent.

The dog goes on to tell us about Sylvan, a poet, who saved him from a shelter.  Sylvan read to him and talked to him until he understood words.  Now it's the dog's turn to save the children.

Teddy, an Irish wolfhound, leads them from the pond, past a large rock and along a path to a cabin sitting in a clearing in the woods.  A light, always lit, shows them the way.  Flora and Nicholas, Nickel, understand words too.  They understand the words Teddy utters.  Now my friends you have the perfect setting for a book you will never forget; a blizzard, two lost children, a lone cabin in the woods and a dog who talks.  But remember only poets and children can hear him.

Over the course of several days as the wind howls, snow falls and the power flickers off and on, through the conversations between Flora, Nickel and Teddy, we come to understand how the relationship grew between Sylvan and Teddy.  We are intimately aware of the special qualities of each child.  We follow along as the three work to navigate this thing we call life.  And what of the poet Sylvan you ask?  You simply must read this book.


Every time I read this book I can feel the sheer beauty of every single line fill my soul with hope, a hope that stays.  (I have always believed everything in our futures depends on children.)  Chapter by chapter you can sense love growing; love between a poet and his dog, love between a poet and one particular student and love between two children and a dog who finds them.  Every word written by Patricia MacLachlan provides an exquisite connection to the next.

Her descriptions of the storm raging outside and the quiet haven created by the children and the dog take you deep into this story.  After a particularly poignant portion (more than one) you will find yourself stopping and thinking about relationships and what makes them endure.  You will also realize if you have not already done so, a single individual, dog or human, can make a difference.  Here are some passages.

"Poets and children" said Sylvan.  "We are the same really.  When you can't find a poet, find a child.  Remember that."

Or was it four days?  Being alone confuses the truth about time.

In the night I got up once to push up the door lever with my nose and go outside into the wind.
Nickel raised his head.
"Where are you going?"
His voice sounded frightened.
"I'm going to pee," I said.
I heard Flora's sleepy, comforting voice in the dark.
"He's a dog," Flora said softly.
"Oh, right," said Nickel.  "I keep forgetting that."
I came back to my red rug next to Nickel.
His arm went around me again.
"Sometimes I forget, too," I said to Nickel.

There was no silence in the cabin, even at night.  The wind was like a wild song that pushed away the quiet.


The Poet's Dog written by Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan with dust jacket artwork by Kenard Pak is one of my favorite books of 2016.  It is a book I will read over and over.  I will read it aloud to anyone who will listen.  It is distinguished.

To learn more about Patricia MacLachlan enjoy this video interview released by the publisher three years ago.


At the publisher's website you can read and listen to an excerpt from the book.