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Children's Books:
Landscapes of Imagination and History
 Another of Graham Oakley's books is "Henry's Quest" (published by
Macmillan, London, in 1986). It is set in a very small country
surrounded by a very large forest. People live in small towns and
cooperatively work the land, raising crops and animals to feed
themselves. To win the hand of a local princess, young Henry embarks
on a quest to find a rare and magical substance known as petrol. He
sets off with donkey and cart to journey across a landscape which
consists of overgrown cities and factories and the abandoned
appliances of modern life. This, we come to realise, is a future
when fossil fuels have become scarce and much of life has reverted
to pre-modern ways. After many adventures, Henry eventually returns
home to what is essentially a smallfarm way of life. If you want to
find out whether he finds petrol and wins his princess or not, you
will have to read the book.
Last year, a New Zealand children's book appeared by Bob Kerr called
"After the War" (published by Mallinson Rendel, Wellington). It is
the story of a little girl and her home as she grows up. It covers
from "after the war" (1945) to the present (2000) in five year
jumps. So the first pair of facing pages is set in 1945, when
"father came home from war" and when "we planted a tree in front of
the house". Part of the illustration is of the kitchen, with food,
appliances and furnishings from the period. Over the page is an
outside scene from 1950 - the little girl is watering the growing
apple tree just next to the house, a small herd of dairy cows is
being taken across the road to a newly cleared pasture, and milk
churns are to be seen on the back of the truck. In the background
are the bush clad hills, a small rural town, and the coast, with a
city on the distant horizon.
As we turn the pages and as the decades go by, the little girl grows
up and gets married and raises her own family. The dairy farm
flourishes and the processes of mechanisation and intensification
are apparent. Then part of the farm is subdivided and sold as ten
acre blocks, with new neighbours arriving as a result. The town
grows slowly then contracts somewhat, a seaside resort springs up,
and the distant city expands, creeping nearer. The bush is cleared
from the hills to be replaced by pasture, but then slips appear,
followed by reafforestation on some slopes, more selective tree
plantings on others. One winter, a storm fells the apple tree that
was planted in 1945. The little girl is now a grandmother. A new
tree is planted.
In this book the changing social and economic times are reflected in
the kitchen and landscape scenes. Also conveyed is a sense of
farming progress and its environmental impacts, and the intimate
relationship between two generations of the same family and the
land. As with many children's books, it offers much to adults as
well. As parents read it together with their children, it provides
them with an excellent opportunity to share their own past, as well
as their own insights and wisdom about people, the land, and the
landscape.
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