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BookDragon Blog

11 Jan / The Boy on the Page by Peter Carnavas

Boy on the PageReady for a bit of inspiring whimsy?

Meet the small boy who, “[o]ne quiet morning … landed on the page.” Initially blank, “… very slowly, a world began to appear. New life emerged.” The boy made friends of all kinds – of the two-legged variety to the diversely-appendaged. He did “all sorts of things,” including some accordian-playing and standing in the pouring rain. And he grew, fell in love, created a family: “He saw the whole world in somebody’s eyes.” He was kind, sharing his home, his family, himself. As perfect as his life seemed to be, the one question he couldn’t quite answer seemed to haunt him: “why [had he] landed on the page”? And so he tries “something he had never tried before …”

Australian author/illustrator Peter Carnavas spins an It’s a Wonderful Life-esque ‘what-if’ fable for kiddies, without any hint of tragic possibilities. Existential as the question may be, the answers are echoed on every page, from the playful penguin sliding off the giraffe’s back, the little girl with flying ponytails and her bunny-in-a-basket, the piglet dancing the oom-pah-pah, the homeless man who emerges from his newspaper nap to a gourmet burger served voilà!-style, to an entire family blowing out a candle together.

Cleverly, gently, imaginatively, Carnavas – whose art couldn’t be more effortlessly charming – reminds us that no matter our age, blank pages loom before us every new day. What we decide to fill those canvases with is up to each of us … every minute, we write the books of our lives. So what would you most want to read?

Readers: Children

Published: 2014

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction Tags > BookDragon, Boy on the Page, Family, Friendship, Kiddie fun, Peter Carnavas
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SmithsonianAPA brings Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture to you through innovative museum experiences and digital initiatives.

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Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

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