Title: Luke’s Way of Looking
Author: Nadia Wheatley
Illustration: Matt Ottley
Publisher: Hodder Headline Australia
ISBN: 9780733614378
Themes: Imagination, Church, Art, Inspiration, Looking outside the box, Looking, Seeing, Beauty, Children’s Imagination, Wondering
Everyone knows someone who has a unique way of seeing the world, perhaps that’s what people say about you, that you see things differently, that you see things that others don’t, perhaps you know a child who sees things slightly differently than the adults around them.
Perhaps it is a lot like the McDonald adverts in which we’re told that we might see a McDonalds restaurant but children see a magical playground full of excitement and opportunities.
Luke’s a lot like that, where we see things one way Luke sees things with vibrant colours, huge magnificent animals, fruit with weird shapes and colours, in his eyes his school looked like a beautiful kingdom full of possibilities. But you see, noone else saw like Luke, all the boys at his school saw the same way, they dressed the same way, they painted the same way, and his art teacher Mr Barraclough sees things the same.
Luke’s told off in his art class time after time by Mr Barraclough for using his imagination and for not painting what he sees.
One day Luke decides not to go to school, instead he takes the first bus that came along, when he gets off the bus he finds a magical world, a castle where the people who live in it must see things just like him. In this new world of fun and colours Luke finds himself at home, almost bursting with happiness as he wanders through the castle.
When he finally returns to school everything’s different, he sees things differently and, when Mr Barraclough asks the class to paint what he sees Luke bursts with colours and paint and Mr Barraclough doesn’t know what to say…
This is one of my favourite children’s books of all time, we often say that children see things differently, that other people see things differently to the way we might, but this book puts it there for us to all see, this is a young person with an artistic gift, a skill that we all wish we had. It asks us a number of questions, but mostly about how differently we see the world, and if we’re able to allow others to see the way that they see things.
Nadia and Matt have put together some study resources for teachers, it can be accessed in the store section of Matt’s blog here: Luke’s Way of Looking Study Notes
How do you see the world?
[rating:5]