Sidewalk Flowers

by JonArno Lawson, Sydney Smith (Illustrator)

Overview

In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. "Written" by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people, and small gestures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554984312
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	03/17/2015
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	82,294
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

JonArno Lawson is a three-time winner of the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Children’s Poetry, and the author of numerous books for children and adults, including Enjoy It While It Hurts, Down in the Bottom of the Bottom of the Box, and Think Again. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three children.

Sydney Smith was born in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been drawing since an early age. Since graduating from NSCAD University, he has illustrated multiple children’s books and he has received awards for his illustrations, including the Lillian Shepard Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration. He now lives in Toronto and works in a shared studio space in Chinatown where he eats too many bahn mi sandwiches and goes to the library or Art Gallery of Ontario on his breaks.

Editorial Reviews

It's wordless, but in this instance language would seem intrusive or didactic. The absence of text seems to provide a more eloquent and nuanced story, one that allows children to freely share their perceptions of the narrative…What might have been a trite, sentimental tale about the power of giving is instead something to treasure. I'd give this book to anyone with a coffee table, in a household with or without children.

The New York Times Book Review - Carmela Ciuraru

★ 01/12/2015
A girl in a hooded red coat walks through the city with her father. He leads her home in silence, leaving her to contemplate the world. She spots flowers growing out of sidewalk cracks. Closing her eyes and sniffing each one, she accumulates a handful, then decides they should be given away. Viewers don’t see what the girl does; instead, they see the results of her work. A dead sparrow on the sidewalk is left with a reverent bouquet on its chest, the gray scene around it flashing into full color. A man sleeping on a bench gets a couple, as does a dog’s collar, and when the girl arrives home, the girl’s mother and siblings receive a scattering of blossoms, too. When viewers last see the girl, she still has one flower, and she’s still walking. If not for Smith’s (Music Is for Everyone) intelligent ink-and-wash panels, his calligraphic pen line, and his delight in sun and shadow, Lawson’s (Think Again) wordless story might have been mawkish. Instead, it’s a reminder that what looks like play can sometimes be a sacrament. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustrated Books
Winner of the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award
Winner of the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award
Winner of the Booksource Scout Award, Favorite Picture Book
Winner of the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award for Book Illustration
A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year
A Horn Book Fanfare Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Picture Book of the Year
An ALA Notable Children's Book
A New York Public Library Best 100 Books for Reading and Sharing
A Cybils Award winner, Fiction Picture Book
A USBBY Outstanding International Book
A National Post Best Book of the Year
A NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children Recommended Book
A 49th Shelf Favourite Picture Book of the Year
Finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Picture Book
A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, 2016

"I’d give this book to anyone with a coffee table." — New York Times

"A poignant, wordless storyline . . . this ode to everyday beauty sings sweetly." — Kirkus, starred review  

"A reminder that what looks like play can sometimes be a sacrament." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

"An emotionally moving, visually delightful ode to the simple powers of observation and empathy. . . . A book to savor slowly and then revisit again and again." — School Library Journal, starred review

"A quiet, graceful book about the perspective-changing wonder of humble, everyday pleasures." — Booklist, starred review

"Sidewalk Flowers is picture-book perfection." -Shelf Awarenss, starred review

"This incredibly special wordless picture book explores the way in which accidental flowers, flowers some people even consider weeds, can bring color and brightness to a city world." — Through the Looking Class Children's Book Reviews, Editor's Choice

"Affecting, efficient, moving, kind. Lawson’s done the impossible. He wrote poetry into a book without a single word, and you wouldn’t have it any other way." — A Fuse #8 Production

From the Publisher

Sidewalk Flowers is about a girl taking a walk with her father. Looking carefully, one finds wonder, discovery, and an affectionate relationship as the child and her father walk hand in hand on a city street. They are on their way home with a bag of groceries. The child’s hooded jacket is red and the color sings in contrast to the street scene depicted in shades of black and gray. The girl notices many things, including people, buildings, and birds. What catch her attention most are the flowers. First are the yellow dandelions near the sidewalk curb. Colors come into the illustrations: the fruit the girl sees at the green grocer’s stand and the yellow taxis, as though the artist is coloring a black-and-white photograph. She discovers other flowering weeds, picks them, and adds them to her bouquet. She finds more flowers in an empty lot and at the base of a lion statue outside a restaurant. Father and daughter walk through a park, the child with her collected flowers and the father with his grocery bag. The child notices a dead bird on the path and stops to lays some of her flowers beside it. Further on, she leaves part of her bouquet beside a man sleeping on a bench. Smith begins to fill the scene with more color. When father and daughter arrive home the neighborhood is a chorus of colors. Smith’s art brings Lawson’s wordless narrative to life, filling it with imagined music, the wonder of ordinary things, and the innocence of sharing. Reviewer: Carol Wolfenbarger; Ages 4 to 7.

Children's Literature - Carol Wolfenbarger

★ 02/01/2015
K-Gr 3—An emotionally moving, visually delightful ode to the simple powers of observation and empathy. A young girl and her father walk home from the grocery store through busy city streets in this wordless picture book. Along the way, Dad is preoccupied—talking on his cell phone, moving with purpose, eyes forward—while his daughter, a bright spot of red in a mostly black-and-white world, gazes with curiosity at the sights around her. In graphic novel-style panels, readers see what she sees: colorful weeds and wildflowers springing up from cracks in the pavement. She begins to collect these "sidewalk flowers" as they make their way past shops, across bustling avenues, and through a city park. Halfway through their journey, the little girl surreptitiously begins giving pieces of her bouquet away: a dandelion and some daffodils to a dead bird on a pathway; a sprig of lilac to an older man sleeping on a bench; daisies in the hair of her mother and siblings. With each not-so-random act of kindness, the scenes fill with more and more color, until the pen-and-ink drawings are awash in watercolor, her world now fully alive and vibrant. With pitch-perfect visual pacing, the narrative unfolds slowly, matched by the protagonist's own leisurely appreciation of her environment. Smith expertly varies perspective, switching from bird's-eye view to tightly focused close-ups. The panel format is used exquisitely; the individual choices are purposeful, and the spaces between panels effectively move the story. VERDICT This is a book to savor slowly and then revisit again and again.—Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

★ 2015-01-03
A child in a red hoodie and a man on a cellphone navigate an urban landscape, the child picking flowers from cracks and crannies along the way.Best known for his nonsense verse, Lawson here provides a poignant, wordless storyline, interpreted by Smith in sequential panels. The opening spread presents the child and (probably) dad walking in a gray urban neighborhood. The child's hoodie is the only spot of color against the gray wash—except for the dandelions growing next to a sidewalk tree, begging to be picked. The rest of their walk proceeds in similar fashion, occasional hints of color (a fruit stand, glass bottles in a window) joining the child and the flowers she (judging by the haircut) plucks from cracks in the concrete. Smith's control of both color and perspective is superb, supporting a beautifully nuanced emotional tone. Though the streets are gray, they are not hostile, and though dad is on the cellphone, he also holds the child's hand and never exhibits impatience as she stops. Once the child has collected a bouquet, she shares it, placing a few flowers on a dead bird, next to a man sleeping on a bench, in a friendly dog's collar. As child and dad draw closer to home, color spreads across the pages; there is no narrative climax beyond readers' sharing of the child's quiet sense of wonder. Bracketed by beautiful endpapers, this ode to everyday beauty sings sweetly. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews