Speaking of memories, as I have been doing of late, The Backyard is a very powerful children's picture book by John Collier that conjures up some very powerful memories. Alas, it is no longer in print, but the Austin Public Library has five copies which I think is a good sign that other libraries may have it, too, and there are used copies available online.
The paintings are stunningly beautiful.
The book itself is fiction about history, about the present, the near past, the distant past, and the creation of the world.
It starts with a boy playing ball in his backyard, and goes back, back, back in time, to when the boy's house was first being built, and then farther back. It takes the boy and the reader to long ago events that happened right there in the boy's backyard, to something as dark as a cowboy who died there, to Indian braves and maidens who loved there, and Indian chiefs who fought battles there, all the way to something as large as the dinosaurs who walked there.
And then it goes back farther still.
It takes the boy back to the time when "hydrogen and darkness and the hand of God moved" in the boy's backyard. I love the last painting of a child's swing set with the swings flying in the tumult of a great wind. It gives the impression that all the fierce energy that started the universe is still right there at work in the boy's own backyard.
"All in my backyard" is the repeating phrase that holds all the events together, but the words are the author's, not the boy's.
The setting seems to be some wide-open prairie land. I can easily see this as a Texas setting, especially with the mention of the cowboys who "sang lonesome songs and died on cold plains."
This book is not for every family, but if you feel it is right for your child, it is a very powerful way in which to imagine one's own backyard.
I often think to myself that just one hundred years ago my little neighborhood was on the outskirts of Austin, and a very much wilder place back then, a land of mesquite trees and dirt roads and wild grasses. And once you start thinking about the early 1900s, you're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the whole of history.
Is history still taking place all around us, I wonder sometimes. If so, I must be passing the little old lady who used to live in my house a hundred times a day as she and I hurry back and forth through these rooms.
But now I must go into the backyard and see what awaits me there. Have a wonderful weekend exploring your own backyard!
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