MRS NOAH'S SONG

A matriarch shares the wonder of song.

Mrs Noah sings constantly while she sews, gardens, and wakes her children for a new day. The children ask where she learned to sing, and she looks sad as she replies, “Far away and long ago.” When pressed by her youngest child, she elaborates that her mother and her grandmother were her teachers and that sadness can be good when reminiscing about people you love. In the verdant garden, Mrs Noah tells her children to close their eyes and listen. After a moment, the children hear birds singing, bees humming, and a breeze whispering in the leaves. They are amazed, but Mrs Noah says the garden sings best in the morning, just as the sun rises. Mr Noah sews a huge hammock so the family can sleep in the garden that night to be ready for the dawn. In Morris and Mayhew’s latest adaptation of the Judeo-Christian story of Noah and the ark, life after the flood is once more enchanted and interwoven with nature. The imagery-rich text and lavish collage and mixed-media art create a harmonious composition that touches on themes of oral storytelling, generational art, and rebirth (“Does this happen every morning?” one child asks, to which Mrs Noah replies, “Every morning. A wild song to raise the sun”). The children have varying skin tones inherited from dark-skinned Mrs Noah and pale Mr Noah. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Dulcet elegance.