Spider in the Well

Written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan

Katherine Tegen Books (An Imprint of HarperCollins)

978-0-063289475

48 pp.

Ages 4-8

March 2024

 

The people of Bad Göodsburg have a problem: their wishing well is broken. The newsboy who delivers the papers–and sweeps the chimneys, delivers the milk, and shines the shoes–is tasked with one more job: find out what is wrong with the well. And when he hears about the charitable wishes of the baker, the doctor, and the shopkeeper, he is determined to ensure those wishes are granted.

From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan

Making his way to the well, the boy learns that a spider in the well has been responsible for the well not working. But, though the spider was just being a spider, building a web that happens to catch the coins, it's what he reveals to the newsboy that truly gets the boy irate and screaming, "Unbelievable!" and demanding justice.

From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan

But what justice needs to be achieved? And how will the town's newsboy and lackey ensure that righteousness prevails?

Without giving away the story of Spider in the Well, let me assure readers that this is more than a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for. And it's not because wishes might be ill-advised. It's because people and their wishes are not always benevolent. Sometimes wishes are selfish and rooted in vanity, greed, and worse, and no one wants to be seen as less than virtuous. The fine citizens of Bad Göodsburg hide behind false virtues and are taken down by a spider and a boy who may be or may not be similarly ethically challenged.

From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan

Jess Hannigan's tale of wishes gone wrong has the tone of a fable or even a fairy tale. It's told with a host of archetypes, from the self-righteous townspeople to the put-upon boy who overcomes unjust treatment to be rewarded in the end. There's even the anthropomorphic spider who helps the boy triumph. And for each one of these characters, Jess Hannigan gets the voices right, and gives the story a tone of reparation rather than of grifting. (You'll see what I mean when you read the ending.)

From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan

Hamilton's Jess Hannigan is an illustrator–this is her first picture book as author-illustrator–and her digital artwork, strong in shape and colour, makes the story even more powerful. By creating characters and scenes that are both simplified and complex in content and perspective, Jess Hannigan draws us into the story and helps us to see the circumstances as the boy does. She has a striking style of soft but bold lines that create tension while keeping the reader sympathetic to the boy, something that is more easily achieved by drawing the townspeople as oddly shaped and weirdly coloured.

 

So, if there's a moral to the story of Jess Hannigan's Spider in the Well, it's to be careful what you wish for because you never know who may be listening. On the plus side, sometimes one person's wishes result in just rewards for another. Just ask the newsboy of Bad Göodsburg, now happily retired.

• • • • • • •

Consider checking out one of several book launches Jess Hannigan will have in Ontario for Spider in the Well.

 

Thursday, March 21, 2024

6:30 PM

Type Books Junction

2887 Dundas St. W., Toronto

 

Sunday, April 7, 2024

1 PM

Epic Books

226 Locke Street S., Hamilton

Strange Light Afar: Tales of the Supernatural from Old Japan

by Rui Umezawa

Illustrated by Mikiko Fujita

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-723-8

144 pp.

Ages 10+

September 2015

Because Rui Umezawa’s eight Japanese folk tales all include some element of the supernatural–ghosts, monsters, magical creatures, or spirits of the dead–these stories are a perfect read for the month of October and Halloween when all things creepy come to reside in the media and in classrooms.  But these tales have several additional key elements to which educators and readers in general will be drawn.  First the stories are firmly embedded in a Japan of fishing villages, cherry blossoms, Buddhists, and mountains, alongside samurai, kimonos and kawauso, lending opportunities to examine an ancient civilization and another culture with which most of us are unfamiliar.  Secondly, these eight stories focus on important life lessons and avoidance of the deadly vices including greed, envy, wrath and sloth.

The first story is called “Snow” and recounts a terrible night when a young boy and his mother are trapped in a snow storm and visited by a Snow Woman who spares the boy’s life on the promise he would never reveal what he’d seen.  It is his betrayal of this promise many years later and without malice that turns his world upside down.  Another supernatural creature appears in “Trickster”, a story in which a peddlar who attempts to cheat his customers with an elixir of questionable efficacy is himself tricked.  Similarly, a young man attempts to keep a beautiful immortal with him by stealthy kindness in “Captive.”

While “Honor” includes a samurai’s horrific death by chopstick, it is an ethical tale of two warriors who take mutual vows of brotherhood and honor each other even after death.  On the other hand, “Envy” examines sibling rivalry in which a jealous brother uses violence to deal with a brother whose goodness repeatedly provides him with wonderful surprises.

In the final three stories, the young men suffer the pains of their own vices, never acknowledging their own roles in their downfalls.  “Vanity” has a young man who feels he loves far too easily given the gift of returning to the time of Buddha to witness his teachings.  In “Paradise”, a lazy, drinking man is given a chance to live in an underwater paradise with a beautiful woman, and though he is wise and compassionate enough to help an abused turtle,

When an animal knows there is no hope, it smothers its own will to survive.  Otherwise, life becomes too painful to bear. (pg. 121)

he is not wise enough to help himself.  And, in “Betrayal”, a married man poisons his wife when he begins to see her as less than perfect.

Each story brings the reader to the fishing villages or festivals or town of a Japan of another time, and Mikiko Fujita’s black and white pencil drawings convey this same other-worldly atmosphere impeccably.  But it is Rui Umezawa’s emphasis on the lessons to be learned and the enlightenment to be had just for reading that will beguile the reader.  The scare factor is minimal–usually associated with the appearance of supernatural beings–but useful in teaching caution, suggestive of the dreadfulness that could arise for living lives of selfishness and wickedness.

Delve into another time and place with these eight stories in Strange Light Afar: Tales of the Supernatural from Old Japan, and teach and learn life lessons that are guided by other-worldly entities who may or may not wish to frighten.