Potato Music

Christina Booth (author)

Pete Groves (illus)

Omnibus Books (Scholastic), Australia: 2010

ISBN: 9781862917880 7+ extension concepts

Genres: picture book, realistic fiction

Issues: family, hope, survival, war

‘Mama says that music helps to keep your soul warm.'

Sometimes family, hope and music are all that you have. They are things that help you survive the dark times, the uncontrollable events in your life. That's the attitude of Mama and Papa, anyway.

Living in a country where war threatens everything they hold dear, the time around the piano after dinner is their escape from reality. They dance and sing and ‘like magic the music fills the room to cover the scream of the planes.' But food becomes scarce and her parents have less energy to dance. One day the child comes home to find that the piano has been replaced by a bag of potatoes. How will they survive now?

A remarkable book, Potato Music explores the complexities of loss that is inflicted on people during times of conflict and as a result of poverty. More importantly Booth expresses her faith in and wonder at the resilience of the human spirit and the power of imagination - and love - to help us survive the dark times. Groves' gorgeous illustrations fill the pages with light and colour, a wonderful contrast to the darker tones used to express times of doubt and the fear that looms outside the house. The power of this book comes not just from its conceptual base but from the interaction between text and illustration. Grove's paintings project a complex range of emotions as well as supporting the narrative, adding enormous depth to the story. As a result this is a book that can be used with almost any age. A must have for libraries and those teaching their children how to cope with our often unhappy world.