Reviewed by Karen Hendriks
Rebecca Young and Matt Ottley’s picture book Teacup won the picture Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2016 and was published internationally.
Rebecca Young loves working with words and pictures as both a publisher and an author. Her picture book The Speedy Sloth was ALIA’s National Simultaneous Storytime picture book for 2023.
Matt Ottley is a multi-modal artist working across visual arts, music and literature. He is an award-winning picture book writer and illustrator with over 25 picture books published. Ottley has written music for this book that will be recorded in Prague and this work will become the eleventh in his Sound of Picture series. It will be performed in Australia in 2025.
Stickboy lives in a dry and barren land where hunters seek water. Stickboy is always left behind. He finds solace in the moon and his grandmother’s stories of when oceans covered the land. Stickboy and his grandmother believe the water will return. The wind tells Stickboy he will be the one to find water. This is a story about incredible courage and spirit.
Rebecca Young’s poetic writing style pulls heart strings and matches beautifully with Matt Ottley’s intricate illustration style. The words used to describe place and change are powerful. Stickboy lived in wind and dust, where ancient rock loomed. From the very first sentence, Young calls upon a reader’s imagination. The language is beautiful and powerful. She spoke of magnificent creatures that moved through the water like a flock of birds curving across the sky.
The pacing unfolds
the story beautifully. But he raced the wind to find their footprints, again
and again. The emotional arc is strong, and it feels like you are inside
the story. Everyone glared at Stickboy. They yelled and screamed and pushed
and shoved. Young says so much with so few words. On the days in
between, everyone searched for water. Masterfully, Young knows exactly when
in the story to tell and when to show. No one knew that his heart was a well
that could find an army.
Matt Ottley’s illustrations are sparse and powerful. The last spreads are wordless and say so much more than any words ever could. They are hauntingly beautiful. The colour palette reflects the bare and barren place perfectly. The reader’s eye is immediately drawn to certain images on each spread that enhance the storytelling. For example, Sometimes the earth creaked and shifted... and swallowed memories, whole.
On the double spread Ottley has a huge metal ship that sits on a dry parched land and Stickboy and a wolf are small. The text gives Ottley room to shine his masterful visual storytelling. The images are allowed to speak and are not crowded by text. This picture book allows both the words and images to speak on so many levels to the reader as they seamlessly work together. Ottley’s use of light and shade dramatizes the story and the moments that are poignant.
Stickboy is a picture
book that will resonate strongly with readers five years and older. It touches
upon the themes of home and belonging and hints at environmental conservation. I
think this book will become another award-winning book. The combination of
Young and Ottley is pure picture book gold.
