Children's Book Review-Molly Bang

                                                                                         

Molly Bang's book "Goose" is beautifully written and even more beautifully illustrated, from the cover with its picture of a goosling poking its head out from among a group of sleeping wood chucks to look both at the viewer and the two older woodchucks looking at it. The word goose in the case of this book implys both the obvious, what the bird is, but goose has further ramifications, including sillyness and the need for a flock. Both these things factor into the story and understanding them can change ones understanding of the story itself.
The story itself lends itself well to symbols such with its images being iconic in nature, allowing us to not worry as the mother goose looses her egg. The darker and colder way this imagry is handeled also allows for contrast with the rich home like brown of the woodchucks home. It is here the baby goose bursts bright yellow into their brown lifes, her tall dominance of the illustration in which she hatches allows us to understand the love the woodchucks have for her. This picture is followed immediatly by a happy picture of the goose centered family portrait style among a loving family of woodchucks. The woodchucks do their best to teach and love the goose, but like nearly all children the goose feels lonely, and of course out of place. Her family and friends try to help her feel better but they are unable to do so. Molly bang shows them riding a log and divided out in a nicely composed set of horizontal rectangles dropping down along page right. This fracturing of the moment which should be joyful shows the gooses lonliness, and her general inability to feel pleasure as perhaps she should.
So the goose wanders off alone to find out who she is, Bang again chooses to split the pages up while pulling away from the goose until she at last is hurt in the throns, to which she devotes an entire right page. This shows us the pain that the goose must face for her choice to leave her family to strike out on her own.
At the same time however had the goose not gone out on her own she would have never learned to fly. Though at this time her loneliness and pain has put things in perspective, so rather then playing with her new ability, the goose flies straigt home to the woodchucks.

About the author:
Ty Hulse has degree’s in art and psychology with both with a children’s and a cross-cultural focus. He is currently working to create the site Zeluna.net which discusses Children’s Literature and Picture Books, as will as Fairy Tales.

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