Looking for Atlantis

Colin Thompson (author/illustrator)

Julie McRae Books, Random House, Australia: 1993

ISBN: 1856812669 

Genre: picture book

Issues: imagination

A young boy is mourning the loss of his grandfather, who died after living a long and full life on the high seas. Trying to follow his grandfather's last advice, the boy searches for Atlantis. 'You have to learn how to look for it,' his grandfather had said.

So the child looks – and looks and looks and looks. 'But all I could see was all I could see.' Look with your imagination, his grandfather had said – but that requires practise. Will he ever find Atlantis?

Colin Thompson blends the real and surreal as easily as breathing. In Looking for Atlantis, the double-page illustrations are packed with extraordinary, fascinating and humorous details that will have visual readers poring over the book for hours. Although the story is longer than is usual for a picture book – even one for older children – the text and illustrations are interdependent. Grandfather's advice would be just that – advice – were it not amplified in Thompson's graphics. Where the boy sees an ordinary room, the reader is in on the joke and sees all the hidden places and space filled with wondrous things. Just as the grandfather encouraged his grandson to develop his imagination, so Thompson's illustrations challenge the reader to look for the hidden, the barely-visible, the subtle and unexpected things. Anything is possible, he reminds us – if you use your imagination.

Without spoiling the resolution, Thompson also gently embeds in his story the suggestion that difficult experiences – such as grief – can be a catalyst to change; an unexpected turn on life's journey can in fact lead to better things. Every crisis is an opportunity: 'I had learned that hopes and dreams are not just inside your head...'

As always with Thompson's work, this is a story about the tremendous power of love.

Highly recommended.