Viewfinder

In this evocative wordless picture book, debut authors Christine Chung and Salwa Majoka describe the adventures of a young astronaut who embarks on a solo journey through space in search of Earth. When she arrives, however, the planet is empty and overgrown. Abandoned cars litter the roads, buildings are falling into decay, and parks are overgrown. What has happened to Earth and its inhabitants?

The young astronaut searches for clues and finds a time capsule buried at the base of a statue. Opening the capsule, she discovers a collection of children’s toys: dolls, stuffed animals, toy airplanes, and an old-fashioned View Master. When she loads a reel and looks into the View Master, she sees images of the planet’s past when children filled the playground, people bustled on the streets, and families lived together in cozy houses. She also sees more ominous scenes of meteors striking the earth and strange mushrooms springing up around the craters. It becomes clear that the families on the View Master reel are behaving purposefully: packing bags, loading luggage onto cars and trains, and travelling to a space station where they boarded spacecraft to take them away from their home planet. The sepia images on the View Master reel match the scenes around her, and so the young astronaut is able to imagine what Earth was like before it became depopulated and fell into ruin and neglect.

The illustrations are bright and colourful, and Chung and Majoka make excellent use of juxtaposition, contrasting the images of the planet’s former vitality with its current abandonment. The images of space are especially luminous. There is mystery as well: the astronaut keeps seeing glowing mushrooms growing everywhere, even on a strange cat which suddenly appears and which may be the only other living thing left on Earth…or is it?

The young astronaut’s exploration of Earth contains many unexpected twists, and more advanced readers will enjoy interpreting her adventures and piecing together the elements of the mystery while young readers will simply enjoy the colourful adventure story. Being wordless, Viewfinder will appeal to a wide range of readers. Overall, this graphic novel is an allegorical tale which reminds us to be careful stewards of planet Earth.