[Repost] Reading “The Little Mouse and the Big Whale” and Entering the World of William Stark

The theme of this Guangzhou Red Mud Read­ing Club is “William Stark’s Pic­ture Books.” “The Lit­tle Mouse and the Big Whale” is one of Stark’s ear­ly pic­ture book cre­ations. The so-called “ear­ly” refers only to his cre­ation of pic­ture books. At that time, he was actu­al­ly in his 60s and had already achieved suc­cess as a car­toon­ist. When cre­at­ing pic­ture books, he seemed to return to his child­hood and return to his orig­i­nal dream in life — to be a sailor and trav­el around the world.Orig­i­nal address:Read “The Lit­tle Mouse and the Big Whale” and enter the world of William Starkauthor:Red Mud Study Group
 

 If it weren’t for the Red Mud Study Group’s dis­cus­sion of William Stark’s works, I prob­a­bly would­n’t have opened “The Mouse and the Whale” for a long time. While its cov­er fea­tures my favorite yel­low, green, and orange hues, it’s not bright or eye-catch­ing; instead, it feels plain and ordi­nary. While it depicts the kind of sail­ing I’ve longed for since child­hood, it’s just the sto­ry of a lit­tle mouse’s sea­far­ing jour­ney. How cap­ti­vat­ing could it be?

    I opened the cov­er with­out any expec­ta­tions, only to be greet­ed by a vast expanse of pale green waters, fill­ing the entire but­ter­fly page. On the next page, a lit­tle mouse stood at the bow, gaz­ing out through a tele­scope. What lay ahead? Uncon­scious­ly, a small sense of antic­i­pa­tion began to build.

     
Amos stands on the beach, gaz­ing out across the ocean. He is a sea-lov­ing lit­tle mouse. “He loves the smell of the sea breeze, the sound of the waves—the foam of the surf, the rus­tle of the waves against the peb­bles.” The sens­es of smell, hear­ing, and the soft, green, yel­low, and orange visu­als per­fect­ly con­vey the roman­tic aura of the ocean. Any­one who grew up near the sea or loves the ocean will undoubt­ed­ly feel this deeply. Just like William Stark, who yearned for the par­adise of Tahi­ti in his youth, Amos must have a deep love for the ocean to be able to depict it with such exquis­ite detail.

 
Amos isn’t just a mouse with dreams; he pos­sess­es a remark­able dri­ve. He begins build­ing a ship and learn­ing sea­man­ship. Once the ves­sel is com­plete, he loads it with essen­tials such as food, tools, and med­i­cine. Stark’s clean lines depict Amos’s aston­ish­ing­ly method­i­cal exe­cu­tion of this mas­sive and com­plex ship­build­ing project. Then, on a calm day, the “Kenken Tribe” sails off. The entire process, from dream to action to sail­ing, is depict­ed in just four pages. The col­ors and lines cre­ate a soft, sooth­ing impres­sion, yet the sto­ry unfolds at a break­neck pace. This pow­er­ful ten­sion allows one to appre­ci­ate the inher­ent strength of Stark’s genius.

    
Not only is there a sur­prise at the begin­ning of the sto­ry, but this sooth­ing style, which con­tains rich ele­ments, runs through the entire sto­ry as it devel­ops.

 Amosroman­ticThe feel­ing still con­tin­ued, “He lay on the deck and stared at the end­less, star­ry sky. Amos, the lit­tle mouse, a speck of dust in the vast uni­verse, felt inte­grat­ed with every­thing. He was fas­ci­nat­ed by the beau­ty and mys­tery of every­thing.…“This beau­ti­ful pic­ture makes us feel as if we are right there in the mid­dle of it.

    
How­ev­er, drift­ing on the sea in a small boat is not always roman­tic, and often involves risks. Just as Amos was mes­mer­ized by the beau­ty and mys­tery of the boat, he rolled back and forth on the deck of the boat.…Fell into the sea… This inad­ver­tent­ly revealedhumor, which makes peo­ple smile. Stark-like humor always seems to be implic­it, such as when Boris the whale said, “…Which whale in the world would have the chance to meet a strange ani­mal like you?…This sub­tle humor, on the oth­er hand, makes peo­ple savor it over and over again, and feel a kind of com­fort­able joy.

 easy、warmthThis remains the keynote of this sto­ry, for, in the inno­cent world of child­hood, the most beau­ti­ful friend­ship is one of ease and warmth. Despite their vast dif­fer­ences in appear­ance and lifestyle, Amos and Boris became the clos­est of friends dur­ing their time togeth­er at sea, shar­ing their lives and dreams, con­fid­ing their inner­most secrets, and car­ing for and appre­ci­at­ing each oth­er.

 In fact, these ele­ments alone are attrac­tive enough, but Stark did not hes­i­tate to sac­ri­fice his lifeRatio­nal think­ingis also inte­grat­ed into the sto­ry. He bor­rowed the light-heart­ed con­ver­sa­tion between Boris and Amos — “We will always be friends, but we can’t be togeth­er. You must live on land, and I must live in the ocean. But I will nev­er for­get you”, and qui­et­ly con­veyed to us the con­cept of “love and sep­a­ra­tion”, which many adults can­not under­stand and accept. There are always times when we have to accept the sep­a­ra­tion of love, which is so help­less and so sad. So, when I reached the last page and saw tears stream­ing down the cheeks of the sad-look­ing Boris, and read Stark telling us — “They knew they might nev­er meet again. They knew they would nev­er for­get each oth­er”, my eyes could­n’t help but moist­en.…

A heart­warm­ing sto­ry ends slow­ly with a touch of sad­ness.

The Lit­tle Mouse and the Big Whale was cre­at­ed in1971This is the first year Stark cre­at­ed5This is a chil­dren’s book.1968Year to2003Years old35In his 1990s chil­dren’s book writ­ing career, it can be said that this is just the begin­ning. How­ev­er, it is pre­cise­ly this first book that, in my opin­ion, flash­es the most shad­ow of Stark. Mor­ris’s love and yearn­ing for the sea, his curios­i­ty about the dis­tant unknown world, his innate adven­tur­ous spir­it and strong action, his love for life, his roman­tic tem­pera­ment, and Boris’s ratio­nal think­ing all reveal the real Stark him­self. This can be seen from his61At the age of 18, he began to try to write chil­dren’s books, and since then35This can be con­firmed by the abun­dant and excel­lent chil­dren’s books pro­duced over the years.

 2003Year,95At the age of 18, Stark wrote and pub­lished his last chil­dren’s book, “Back Then, Every­one Wore Hats.” At the end of the sto­ry, Stark tells us:

“1916I was eight years old in 1989, and every­one wore hats back then. When I grow up, I want to be a painter or a sailor.

“This is my pic­ture now, with­out my hat. I real­ly became a painter, but I did­n’t become a sailor.”

 But I think Stark must be very sat­is­fied with the fact that he has depict­ed and shared the beau­ti­ful dream of being a sailor in “The Lit­tle Mouse and the Big Whale” through his won­der­ful brush.…

                                                    
Haier

                                                     Writ­ten in Guangzhou on June 21, 2016