Sidewalk Flowers warms the heart
At this writing, it’s unseasonably cold outside and a book titled Sidewalk Flowers is enough to warm the soul.
Attributed to poet Jon-Arno Lawson (even though this is a wordless picture book) and illustrated by Sydney Smith, this unusual volume by a Toronto duo is aimed at ages four to seven by the publisher, but I think it’s a worthy book for all ages. The art has a film-noirish retro look, although if the amount of time the father figure spends on his phone is any indication, it is set in contemporary times. And likely in Toronto.
The story, such as it is, opens on a busy urban street and focuses on a little girl who accompanies her father as he goes for groceries. Except for her bright red hooded coat, the illustrator uses mostly shades of black and white to depict the storefronts and street scenes. But right from the start, sharp-eyed viewers will notice that the little girl is drinking all the action; she notices the tattoos on a man’s arm, the sadlooking woman in the back seat of a car and the dandelions growing, against all odds, out of the concrete sidewalk. Those dandelions lead to a burst of colour — not just the yellow of their petals and green of their leaves, but similar shades in the produce outside a grocery store and the yellow taxis gathered in the street.
Father, carrying a bag of groceries in one hand, uses the other to lead his child onto an overpass where, in the shadows, she spots some pink flowers and adds them to her yellow ones. When dad stops to take a call, the little girl scrambles up a concrete berm to pick more flowers growing in the cracks. Her father is totally oblivious to this, but plenty of folks waiting at a bus stop notice her and smile at the sight of this urban Red Riding Hood clambering about in search of wild flowers.
And so it goes, the quiet little girl adding to her bouquet while the distracted dad takes care of business. Eventually, they reach the park — and the girl stops to examine a dead bird on the sidewalk. By the time she catches up to her father, she has left behind a flowery memorial. Now her focus is on finding worthy recipients for her blooms: a sleeping man on a park bench, a dog who shakes paws with her while, in a lovely juxtaposition, her dad is shaking hands with the dog’s owner.
The floral gifts are made without fanfare; it’s doubtful the dog is even aware of the posies now tucked into his collar. And by the time they reach home, the girl hugs her mom (tucking flowers into her hair unseen) and goes to the backyard, where she leaves flowers with her two siblings and keeps just one for herself: a daisy she tucks behind her ear while watching the birds fly overhead.
It’s a lovely, lyrical book — perfectly suited to conversation between parent or teacher and child, and something to remind all of us that the cold will end and flowers will bloom again.