We Are Many

The epigraph above, which appears on the title page, leads into a helter-skelter story of a group of children frolicking on a playing field with a soccer ball, then throwing themselves into a pile to retrieve it. It is not long before they find a whole lot of other people have started intruding on their game. A “laughing heap of kids” on the grass grows to include a lot of adults, the original grown-up onlookers soon joined by others from all over. A string quartet? They’ve arrived. Six clowns? They leave a taxi cab to enter the fray.

The kids tried to make sense of what was happening.

What were the adults doing? Why were they trying to

take charge? Why were they changing the game?

The kids had been having so much fun – taking turns

being at the bottom of the pile. Simple! Now they were

simply stuck.

These unwanted adults have taken over, analyzing and measuring the pile at length. After lots of pushing and balancing and laughter, the ball, which has been in the middle of the pile all along, pops out. Now the author’s attempts at cartoon zaniness really take over.

Some people landed upside down, and they had to turn

themselves right side up to properly see what was happening.

Others were stuck sideways with their legs out and heads in,
and still others had their legs in and heads out.

The adults are having a vigorous discussion about whether or not two piles would be better than one when a child, who is now holding the ball, shouts:

“Stop!” Nobody moved.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing but its not

the game we’re playing!”

“We’re starting over,” the child said. “You’re welcome

to join us.”

And they did, cooperating to make small piles of happy adults and children all over the field.

The artwork for the book, by Japanese-born illustrator Suharu Ogawa, reminded me of 1950’s comic strips like Little Lulu and Richie Rich, the simple human figures showing lots of open mouths and wide grins. The people in the pile, with their newspapers and bicycles and cameras and kayaks, all wear exaggerated expressions ranging from cheer to anxiety, and there is a lot of fun detail. The bright primary colours of the figures’ unadorned clothing and the strong black outlines certainly have a retro feel.

As for the text, it is hard to judge the message of this. Everyone has a place somewhere: you just have to find it? Just let kids be kids? The publicity blurb which accompanied my review copy says this is “a one-of-kind kid’s-eye view of the curious way people behave in groups”. But to me, the author was just trying too hard to make a book full of action and humour that also had a moral. Overall, I found that the whole thing did not make a lot of sense.