A Life Song (Jane Godwin, illus Anna Walker, Puffin)

The latest masterpiece by dream team Jane Godwin and Anna Walker, A Life Song is a gentle rhyming picture book that ponders growing up and finding your place in the world. ‘When you are born, you make up a song/It doesn’t rhyme, and it isn’t long.’ Every life song is unique. As you grow and your world expands, each new experience becomes part of your song. Walker’s distinctive watercolour illustrations evoke the small joys of childhood. As the young protagonist continues to experience life, her song—which, at birth, begins as a tiny stream—grows so great that it becomes a river, which in turn joins a larger river, created long before she was born. Her life becomes part of the rhythm of the wider world. So do the elements of her life song grow more complex. As is to be expected from Godwin and Walker, who have produced classics such as Don’t Forget, All Through the Year, Tilly and Starting School, the creators acknowledge that life is full of both joys and sorrows (your song is at times loud and celebratory, at times soft and gentle), and Godwin’s beautiful rhyming verse takes the sting out of broaching sensitive topics such as death and grief. A fantastic gift for new parents, A Life Song would also be perfect for milestones of any kind, and is recommended for children between 5 and 7 years old. 

Books+Publishing reviewer: Hannah Gardiner has been a bookseller since the pre-Titlepage era. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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Category: Reviews