The One with the Scraggly Beard

The number of displaced people has grown the past decades due to economic hardships, a lack of support for mental health issues, social disruption and other reasons. Governments have stopped supporting low income housing to a large extent while, at the same time, minimum wages have stagnated and the cost of living and shelter has skyrocketed beyond what many people can afford.

The result is a catastrophe for even developed, wealthy societies. More people have no place to call home and struggle in various ways to survive. When stories emerge, we learn that homelessness can happen to anyone, no matter their origins.

That’s the basis for The One with the Scraggly Beard by Elizabeth Withey. The story came about when her son met his uncle who has been living on the street since 2015.

Children consider the adults in their lives as models for what they’ll be doing when they grow up. The little boy in the story leads a middle class life, but he has become aware of a man with a scraggly beard who lives under a bridge. He wonders if this is a possible future for him - to not bathe, to contain all his belongings in a shopping cart, to lose his teeth. He contrasts the rough and difficult way the man lives to his comfortable home, his many possessions, his time spent on leisure rather than survival.

He looks to his mother for an explanation. Wisely, she says:

… life is like the sea.

Sometimes smooth.

And sometimes very rough.

She says we can’t see ships

that are past the horizon.

It’s her way of telling her son that, even though we may have a certain level of comfort and example of industriousness and prosperity as we grow up, we can’t predict what may happen. Each of us is affected by circumstances; our personal stories are all different.

The One with the Scraggly Beard is a wise and timely tale because young children see what is happening on our streets and wonder why. Withey’s spare text allows the little boy to fill in the spaces as he matures and develops understanding.

Lynn Scurfield’s effective ink, paint and collage illustrations represent the reality of homelessness - a man who wears heavy clothing even in the summer, whose body is battered - yet he appears happy. At the same time, the child’s life is full of material goods; he is clean and well-clothed – and happy. Scurfield’s slightly abstracted style (the light in the man’s eyes shows he might be looking ‘beyond’) vs. the perfectly drawn watches running the length of his arm, promote thought.

Still, the two characters have similarities. Scurfield does a good job of showing both the man and the boy with their missing teeth, their full pockets and hey - their tendency to forget to brush their hair! They also look alike, and ultimately she shows the man sitting on the boy’s porch - because they are related. He is accepted for who he is, still a part of the family.

The One with the Scraggly Beard can be a useful book for a family with an individual who is homeless. It can certainly add to a classroom collection where social issues and social acceptance are important topics taught by early years teachers.