quiet

A story of quiet resistance

Not having an abundance of local libraries, the next best thing is our local bookshop. I walk down there with one child on their bike or else both of them in the stroller. They are currently two and four and its just over a kilometer each way. Wheels of some sort ensure a more enjoyable journey. Both do the walk singly with me, but the probability of disaster increases exponentially when number of children increases and mode of transport is not chosen carefully.

A couple weeks ago, on one of these outings, I spotted a book with a little red bird on its cover

Quiet

By Tom Percival (Author) Richard Jones (Illustrator)

I speed read kids books to get a sense of what I am getting into before bringing them home. It didn't take long to convince me this was one I would enjoy. Though I hadn't entirely registered just how much quite yet.

Its a delightful tale of an intrepid young heroin (the red bird), who not only stands up to an ecologically destructive force far more powerful than herself. But does so by organising her fellow forest dwellers into what amounts to a collective non violent protest. She finds her voice and uses it quietly to rally the forest inhabitants in order to protect their homes.

It could be the long litany of books on ecological collapse and the imminent demise of the western standard of living that I've been consuming but, this book struct a cord, quite hard. Seemingly with M. as well, who has insisted on its reading, at least twice a day since it came into our home.

Its hard to fully grasp the inner workings of a two year olds mind, it may be the illustrations, or how the content moves me, or just the little red bird but the child is obsessed with Quite.

Time will tell if he takes the message to heart, both as an approach to conflict but in particular in the need to do something about the post loomed ecological disaster we find ourselves living in.

If you have a child, or know one, and can find this book, you won't go wrong by giving them a copy.

🏷️ #read #book #childrensbook #anarchism #solidarity #ecology #environmentalism