Anzu The Great Listener

Benson Shum has followed up his earlier work, Anzu the Great Kaiju with a book with the unlikely subject of bonsai at its centre. Is Anzu a dragon? Or a lizard? For a moment, I even thought he might be a bird. In any case, he is a bright yellow creature who finds peace and serenity in the steps involved in the cultivation of a bonsai tree. Then his solitary reveries are interrupted.

One day, a somber cry pulled Anzu out of his zen.
His neighbouring city wailed and wept.
“Are you okay?” Anzu asked.
But when he saw the stones, he knew.
Their kaiju was gone.
The villagers were lost, and their hearts were broken.

The villagers are a crowd of tiny creatures that look like marshmallows with legs. What can Anzu do to provide relief? His efforts to help do not work out. Showers of cherry blossoms do not provide a substitute for rain, a forest of bamboo disrupts the riverbed, and the upsurge of vines that he conjures up can lift loads but eventually “strangle their treasures”.

A few moments of meditation provide the answer for Anzu. Instead of imposing his own ideas on the situation and telling the neighbours what they need, Anzu should listen to their voices and their stories.

He listened to how their kaiju had brought floods,
creating rivers full of life. Their city had once flourished
with evergreens.
He listened to how the villagers felt lost,
not knowing the way forward.
He listened to how they were afraid they would
forget their home.

All the listening provokes an outpouring of feeling and “a place to remember and treasure their kaiju’s memory”. In the end, it is the gift of Anzu’s blossoming bonsai tree, a miniature to him but a plant large enough to provide the perfect shade for the wee beings, that cements their contentment.

Shum has credits which include illustration for other picture books (Go to Sheep, by Jennifer Sattler) and work for the Walt Disney Animation Studio. Anzu’s colourful fur? plumage? scales? stand out against backgrounds of sky blue and bright green, all executed with watercolour and ink. There is a comic strip feel to many of the spreads in which the action takes place inside black-bordered boxes. The text is printed in an oversized font which makes for easier reading. One of the best parts of the book for me is what is printed on the back cover: a series of illustrated facts about the art of bonsai.

However, I believe that there are some things here that might prove confusing for youngsters. Nowhere, either within the story itself or in any prefatory material, are the terms ‘zen’ or ‘kaiju’ explained, although context indicates that the kaiju is some kind of totem for the marshmallow tribe. The disappearance of the kaiju is not explained in either word or image. And was it a city or a village that was destroyed? Some of the phraseology is awkward (“Anzu had the perfect plant to patch their dispute”; “But the stalks overgrew…”).

Kindergarteners will enjoy looking through the book at the bright pictures, but they might not be so entertained by the heavy hand with which the moral is delivered.