Anthony Browne

Between the lines: Kids go ape over shapes with award-winning illustrator

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 19 November, 2013, 8:42am

UPDATED : Tuesday, 19 November, 2013, 8:51am

Annie Holife@scmp.com

Anthony Browne is a British children's book creator whose works are loved throughout the world. Bestowed with the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2000 and honoured as Britain's Children's Laureate in 2009, Browne is also the only author-illustrator to win the Kate Greenaway Medal twice.

He has published more than 40 books and is known for his illustrations of primates, from the hauntingly beautiful beasts in Gorilla to comically expressive chimpanzees in the Willy the Wimp series.

With more than a dozen books by Browne in our home, we we were excited to meet this creator of thoughtful and surreal picture books on his first visit to Hong Kong. We joined him at the Central Library for 90 minutes of storytelling and playing the Shape Game, which Browne and his brother "invented" and played in their childhood. Browne thought it was unique until he started playing the Shape Game with his fans and learned that children around the world have also played variations of it.

There were 30 children, accompanied by their parents, at the Hong Kong event.

Browne engaged the children in the Shape Game with just a whiteboard and some coloured pens. One child would draw an abstract shape, another would transform that shape into something recognisable, and all the children would try to identify the object. According to Browne, children are much better at the Shape Game than adults because they have that pure sense of imagination unfettered by self-consciousness and social norms.

As each child was given a turn at the whiteboard and parents chuckled good-naturedly at the children's drawings and guesses, I was able to distinguish children from local or international schools. For example, when presented with an inverted triangle with rounded corners, the local schoolchildren interpreted the shape more literally, as a stone or an ice-cream cone. Those from international schools, on the other hand, saw the shape as the side profile of a duck's head, or even "an upside-down princess in a ballgown".

I wondered if I was stereotyping local versus international school education by making such a distinction. After all, it could just be that those children with unconventional responses were raised by parents who valued and nurtured their creative development.

In any event, all the children were enthusiastic and eager to participate, which resulted in a highly interactive Shape Game session.

After playing, Browne read two of his stories, Into the Forest and Gorilla. Children and parents alike were enraptured. The biggest draw was having Browne pause to point out certain images and share his thought process and intentions when he created them. Often, the background to the main story illustrations held many hidden symbols and imagery.

The Shape Game, Browne's picture book, is different from the game. I expected the book to be a collection of shape drawings. Instead, the reader is treated to an intimate glimpse of the fictionalised Browne family going through their first visit to the Tate Britain museum.

When the family characters stop in front of Augustus Egg's painting Past and Present No1, they dissect the painting for its literal explanations as well as its metaphors. Through the rich narrative and introduction of a number of paintings, Browne succeeds in explaining how art is experienced through the eyes of adults and children.

In a way, Browne continues to play the Shape Game in his picture books, from a bicycle wheel that transforms into an apple in Changes, to a giant's leg among a forest of trees that is only revealed upon closer inspection inInto the Forest.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them (bringmeabook.org.hk)

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Going ape over shapes with award-winning British illustrator

Books Transforms Lives (2)

Between the lines: reading aloud with children can transform their lives

Annie Holife@scmp.com

If I were to ask you how important is it for a student to read well, you would say it was very important. But people seem less convinced when it comes to the importance of parent-child read-aloud. I suspect that reading aloud is viewed as a leisure activity on par with taking one's children to musical shows or going on a family nature walk.

It wasn't until I started working with Bring Me A Book that I learned that, the lower the socioeconomic class of the child, the bigger the impact of reading aloud.

Parent-child read-aloud will certainly enhance a middle-class child's development; but for underprivileged families, this activity transforms lives.

There have been many studies into how linguistic patterns used in middle-class homes differ from those used in low-income homes. One study found that parents in low-income homes used imperative statements, while those in middle-class homes used discrete interrogative questions.

Middle-class families use the same language patterns as schools, so their children develop the skills needed to learn the way that schools teach.

More than one study has reinforced the finding that children of professional parents hear 30 million more words by age three than children from low-income households.

Language patterns and vocabulary are connected to reading comprehension, so low-income children face increased challenges once they enter school and start learning to read.

When low-income parents spend a few minutes each day reading aloud to their children, they provide opportunities for vocabulary-building, questions and discussions.

English parish priest Jay MacLeod conducted detailed research on how poverty is perpetuated. Ain't No Making It chronicles his relationships with a dozen young men from the same public housing development that spanned 25 years.

One of his conclusions is that character and behaviour are greater determinants of success than academic achievement, for the simple reason that it takes a lot more than IQ to stay away from drugs and crime in that kind of neighbourhood.

Paul Tough's How Children Succeed is a more appealing read on a similar train of thought. Tough criticised early childhood education's emphasis on cognitive skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) as he pointed to extensive findings that children with good non-cognitive skills (self-motivation, self-control, self-awareness) were the ones who fared better in adult life.

One study that Tough shared in his book found a high correlation between childhood stress and trauma on the one hand, and depression and anxiety disorders in later years.

Another study showed the importance of parental attachment: parents who were responsive produced securely attached children, and such attachment created psychological effects that last into adulthood.

A third study concluded that any lasting impact of childhood stress and trauma can be erased by strong parental attachment.

When low-income parents spend a few minutes each day reading aloud to their children, they will be providing opportunities for cuddling and dissolving stress.

The philosophy behind parent-child read-aloud is about so much more than just books. It is about connecting families and communities. It is about how parents can help their children succeed in life in ways that are much more effective than making sure they get good grades.

All of this scientific research is humanised in Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore.

The author is an exemplary contributor to society who discovered another Wes Moore languishing in prison. Both came from the same poor black neighbourhood, were the same age, and grew up in single-parent families.

He contacted the other Wes Moore and examined how their similar pasts led them down different paths.

The author believed it was his mother's attachment parenting that helped develop his character and keep him from a life of crime.

When it comes to school readiness, kindergartens need to focus less on drilling cognitive skills and more on developing non-cognitive skills.

Until kindergarten curricula are reformed to reflect this, parents need to be aware of how small changes in their daily home life can transform their children's future.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as When reading aloud transforms lives

Books Transform Lives (1)

Between the lines: reading together helps families bond and grow

Annie Holife@scmp.com

I regularly venture into parts of Hong Kong I would never see were it not for my work with Bring Me a Book. I visit kindergartens, primary schools and community centres.

When I see the sweet and earnest faces of the children, I can't help but wonder about their future. How many of them will break out of their economic class and stop the poverty that often gets passed from generation to generation?

Many parents in these communities can barely make ends meet, yet they will spend what little they have on after-school tutorial classes for their children. They do so in the misguided belief that more tutorials lead directly to better school grades and, ultimately, success in life.

The after-school classes to which I refer are not the fun-filled and stimulating activities that middle-class children enjoy. Tutorials in these communities often involve paying HK$50 for a child to sit silently for one hour, among rows of students, watching an instructor with a wireless microphone expounding academic theories.

This learning environment is hardly helpful for a child who is already struggling at school. Most parents want their children to read well, yet many are sceptical about their ability to help their children develop a lifelong love of books. Some parents don't believe they are educated enough or have sufficient language skills. Others blindly follow the masses; if the whole neighbourhood has signed up for English flashcard classes, they feel compelled to do the same.

I tell parents in these communities to save their money and take their kids to the public library instead. Through our read-aloud training workshops, they come to understand the tangible and intangible benefits of parent-child read-aloud sessions.

And after they put what they've learned into practice, they become true believers that something so simple as reading stories together can have a big impact on their family life and their children's development.

Middle-class families tend to spend quality time together and live in homes containing at least half a dozen books. This is not the case in lower-class families.

One parent told me that, before she started reading with her son, their interaction usually involved berating him about school homework and household chores. This parent went from a long day of work to an evening of cooking, cleaning and childcare. Her eight-year-old son rarely spoke to her, preferring to spend his time playing video games in his room.

Our training workshops comprise two classes one week apart. At the end of the first class, we give parents two books to take home, and ask them to read aloud to their children every night for one week.

By the time the parent with the eight year-old son returned for the second class, she was a devotee of reading aloud.

She revealed that her son was at first reluctant to sit down and listen to his mother read a picture book. When they finally sat down and read the story together, she suddenly realised that she hadn't cuddled with her son, not in months, but years.

By the end of the week, mother and son were having meaningful conversations, including her son sharing that a friend was being bullied at school.

She began to see her son in a new light, as the labels of irresponsible, ill-mannered and unresponsive melted away, and his sense of humour and endearing perspective on life came to the foreground.

By the end of the second class, she knew that their lives had been transformed.

This parent was aware that this transformation would improve the relationship, but what she had yet to learn was what had happened would lead directly to her son's improved cognitive and non-cognitive ability.

In the next column we will find out how. 

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Reading together, staying together