The Dream Kite

Arty has a dream about flying a bird-kite, and when his friend Tall Boy is too busy to help in the run-up to a festival, Arty’s family step in, building a frame kite with bright coloured cloth. While the boy is worried that other kites will outshine his at the festival, a ‘warm, strong breeze’ picks up the kite, which ‘dances to the rhythm of the wind.’ There is a subtle play here with the role of tradition and family. It is not overdone, and the boy feels the rhythm of the wind as it takes the kite which Granma says is ‘flying high high, like an eagle in the sky.’ The kites, all shapes and colours, take over the final pages in a riotous depiction of the community’s kite flying.

Reading aloud texts where a version other than standard English is represented has its own challenges. Grace Hallworth knew her task, however, having been a major force in the continuation of Trinidadian storytelling, as well as a librarian, and an author nominated for the Kate Greenaway medal. Here, the spoken text draws on the author’s own Trinidadian language experience – ‘Pappy for true? Is my kite to fly?’ little Arty asks his father. How to read this aloud opens up a lot of issues that are beyond the scope of a short review, but while this book might require a bit more preparation for many practitioners sharing the story with a group, this shouldn’t put anyone off: the value for a child who speaks like this, or whose family talk to one another like this, is incalculable, and all children will relish the lively story and vibrant artwork of a family and friends celebrating kite flying together.