Pistes d'exploration

Discuss why people fight. Explore the reasons and connect them to conflicts that are happening in the world today.

As you read through the book, find a single word per page that reflects the mood of that page. Develop the collected words into a poem.

Write the story of one of the soldiers. Compare your story with a classmate who writes the story of the other soldier. Highlight the similarities of the two stories. What does this say about opposite sides in a war?

Discuss the message of the story. What are some peaceful ways to resolve conflicts? What is the best way to get along with other people?

Write a short summary of the story.

Predict, orally or in writing, what will happen next between the two characters.

Discuss how a book can be read and understood without written text. Peruse this book and list techniques the author uses to present the storyline.

As you read this wordless book, pause to write questions evoked by the illustrations. In small groups, read your questions to each other and discuss your answers.

With a partner, write two versions of the story: one from the blue soldier’s point of view and one from the orange soldier’s.

The Forgiveness Garden, Up Above and Down Below

Mots-clés

Picture book , compromising , differences , feuds , lift-the-flap books , peace , perspectives , soldiers , wordless book

Commentaire descriptif

Two soldiers, mired in a personal cold war, keep a watchful eye on each other through the changing seasons. Stationed at their posts with spyglasses, they regard one another with suspicion. When a snail shows up one day, and later a bird, the feuding pair soon realize that their differences don't have to make them enemies. The power of this book lies in its material and visual qualities: two perfect holes punched out of the sturdy cover introduce the cartoonish soldiers—one wearing blue, the other orange—as near mirror images of one another, while interior section-cut flip pages open the story up to alternative ways of “seeing” the world. Each page is a spare black and white illustration, with orange and blue highlights representing each side in the conflict. Wordless, it relies on simplicity and comical illustrations to convey the complex idea that war is futile and that different people and cultures don't always see eye to eye on things. An editor's note explains that the characters’ names (after two Napoleonic battles the French lost) were intended to be oddball and “funny-sounding.”