Philippe Dupasquier

I loved the book "A Country Far Away" for a few reasons. The book is set up similarly to a graphic novel, with multiple panels on each page, separated in the middle by the text; the panels on the top are illustrated to display one boy’s life, while the panels on the bottom are meant to display a second boy’s life. The two unnamed boys live in very different places, the boy on top lives in what appears to be a third-world country, in a village with clay and straw homes and very little resources while the boy on the bottom lives in a first-world country, in a suburban neighborhood. The reader follows a day in the life of these two kids while reading one line of text that applies to both boys in the story, despite the vast differences in their environments. On one page, the text reads: “I helped my mom and dad. They were pleased”, the panels on top show the boy carrying pails of water, climbing coconut trees, milking a goat and slicing fruit on the dirt floor of his hut; the panels on the bottom show the other boy vacuuming the family room, mowing the lawn, and playing racquetball with his mom. On another page, the text says: “I went bike riding with my friends. I’m one of the best riders”, the top panel shows the boy riding on a bike while a group of kids run after him, they each take turns sharing the bike with joyful faces. The bottom panel shows the second boy riding dirt bikes on a track with his friends, winning a second place trophy. On one of the last pages, the text reads: “Today it rained—so we went swimming”, the top panel shows the heavy rain forming a swimming hole in the dirt, the boys swim around in the shallow water naked, while the bottom panel shows the other boy going to the indoor swim park with his dad, going down water slides and diving off the diving board. I love the way that the author chose to tell this compare and contrast story—he isn’t trying to blatantly point out the astounding differences in the two character’s livelihoods, rather he is taking a more positive liberty, showing the similarities between them. Because the text is so simple and the illustrations carry almost all of the meaning of the story, young children reading the book will be able to comprehend the text easily while observing the different realities of day to day life for each child. The message of the story is that the quality of our lives is entirely dependent on our perspective and outlook—all around the world, there are people who live in all sorts of environments with different cultures, values, resources, etc., and yet we are not all that different from one another. Doing chores for our parents such as vacuuming the carpet might seem like the most inconvenient, annoying task to perform when we would much rather do something fun; while somewhere else in the world another child is being asked to scale a tree or carry water long distances to provide basic needs for their entire family. The author’s purpose in telling this story is not meant to make the reader feel guilty for complaining about a life that is much easier in comparison to another, but rather, to ask the reader to recognize that what separates one life from another is simply the materialistic parts.… (more)