I picked up the 2024 picture book When Creature Met Creature because the author (John Agard) recently won the CLiPPA (Centre for Literary in Primary Education Poetry Award), a major British award for children’s poetry, and I realized I hadn’t read anything by him.
My bad. I apologize, and it won’t happen again, because this book was considerably more than I expected, and considerably more than most children’s poetry. This is partially due to the core idea, partially to Agard’s verse, and partially to Satoshi Kitamura’s striking illustrations.
The book follows Creature-Of-No-Words, who passes through this world, as his name suggests, without language. He is happy (though he doesn’t know the word), and lives a visceral, immediate life, responding to the moment directly. He sprawls on the sand, runs with birds, eats things, and does flips. For a long time, he is happy.
And then, though he does not know the word, he is sad. While he’s sad, Creature-Of-Words spies him, and then spies on him, for a while. She lives richly as well, but when she is happy, shouts “Happy! Happy!” She also celebrates the rest of the things that give her life joy with words. Eventually–and carefully–she approaches Creature-Of-No-Words and repeats “Hug! Hug!”
They hug, and life together ever after. They are happy. Sometimes they use words. Sometimes they are happily silent together.
The bravery of the story, and the vivid, sometimes jarring, images, make the book’s entire world magical. Kids will love this for itself, but also for its symbolic meaning. It won’t have been that long since they were creatures without words themselves, and kids approach creatures without words (family pets–or younger siblings) with clumsy love. And showing that words are good, but so is silent acceptance…
Good stuff.
