Does a book need the text to give you some emotions? Not always.
Sometimes pictures and colours could carry the reader into an imaginary world where you can lose yourself and discover new feelings. This is exactly what happens leafing through the pages of “Wave” by Suzy Lee.
What is a silent book?
A silent book could look simple, but to understand it, the reader needs a good narrative ability because he has to create the story with his little reader.
In this book is it possible to meet a spiteful and curious child, who’s just arrived on the beach, with her mum who walks carrying her umbrella. Immediately, the little girl, reaching the seashore, seems fascinate by the ocean. Five seagulls observe the scene behind her.
In this moment begins the interaction with the foamy wave. At the beginning, both the girl and the seagulls, are scared and they try to escape from it. Then, they start to play with it, still a little bit frightened but also happy, until the wave breaks on them.
Here comes the surprise…
The wave brought lots and lots of seashells! Now the little girl feels surprised!
Themes inside the book
While “reading” this book, it is possible to find different themes that you can explore with your child. Our main character feels various emotions: fear to do something, courage to deal with it, happiness when it comes to play, astonishment towards the end.
Furthermore, the thread seems to be the friendship between the human world and the natural world, and how this relationship, since our childhood, helps people to trust others.
Emotions are innate, biologically driven reactions to certain challenges and opportunities, sculpted by evolution to help humans survive. Children are not able to denominate them and they also find difficult to understand what are they feeling. For this reason, the parental role is essential. A parent doesn’t have to worry about showing his child how is he feeling because is throughout observation that he learns what does it mean to feel in a certain way and how to express himself.
Flavia Capoano 