by Chris Van Allsburg
Reviewed by Susan Kay Phillips
The Widows Broom, written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, is appropriately mysterious, inspiring and spooky as our October children’s picture book selection. At its heart, it is the story of compassion, courage and the difference between following love and following fear.
The story begins with a young witch making a nighttime flight over the countryside on her broom. We learn from the narrator that a witch’s broom sometimes loses its power of flight. Generally, this loss of power happens gradually and is sensed by the witch. But sometimes it can happen quite suddenly. This is exactly what happens to this young witch, sending her and her failing broom tumbling to the ground to land in the vegetable garden of a lonely widow, Minna Shaw.
The next morning, Minna is quite surprised and shaken to find a witch in her garden, battered and bloody. Being a kindly person, Minna helps the witch into her house and tucks her in bed. The witch wraps herself in her long black cloak and falls into a deep sleep. The next morning, the witch is gone but she has left her flight weary broom behind.
Minna finds that the broom is a rather ordinary broom. She begins using it around the house. Then one morning she gets a scary shock. She peeks around the edge of the kitchen door to find the broom sweeping the floor all by itself. Obviously, the broom still has magic.
Minna quickly intuits that the broom might be able to do other things. Indeed, she is correct. Very soon the broom is happily feeding the chickens, chopping wood, bringing the cow in from the pasture, and has even learned to play the piano, one note at a time.
Minna tells her only near neighbors, the Spivey family, how wonderful the broom is. Mr. Spivey reacts with fear and suspicion. “This is a wicked, wicked thing,” he said. “This is the devil.” Two of his sons adopt his feelings. When they find the broom happily amusing itself by sweeping the dirt road, they begin to harass it. They call it names and tap its handle roughly with sticks. Finally, the broom has had enough. It turns to the boys and knocks them both sharply over the head.
Now, Mr. Spivey is determined to get rid of the broom. He comes to Minna’s house with two friends. They take the broom from the closet where Minna tells them it sleeps, carefully so as not to wake it. Out a field, they tie it to a stake and burn it to ashes.
Life returns to normal until one day Minna rushes over to the Spivey’s farmhouse. She breathlessly recounts that she has seen the white ghost of the broom out at night, brandishing an axe. That very night, the Spivey’s see the ghost of the broom circling their house. Each night it circles closer and closer until it is tapping ominously on their door with the axe. Mr. Spivey panics. He packs up his wife and their eight children to leave, urging Minna to come with them. She refuses.
The next evening, Minna is dozing peacefully in her chair, listening to lovely music being played on the piano, one note at a time by the broom, still wearing the coat of white paint she had given it.
“You play so nicely,” Minna Shaw said. The broom bowed, put a log on the fire, and played another tune.”
Reviewer’s Note
There are few children’s picture book author/illustrators more accomplished than Chris Van Allsburg. His stories carry a touch of the mysterious and reach beyond ordinary reality to fantasy and the surreal. His illustrations carry you into the magic world he is creating. They are flawlessly executed and support the text perfectly.
Van Allsburg began his career as a sculptor. As he was working in his studio, he began to do some pencil drawings. His wife, Lisa Morrison, took these drawings to an editor, who urged Van Allsburg to write a story to go with the pictures. He did so, and his first picture book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, was hailed as a unique breakthrough in picture book writing and illustrating. The rest, as they say, is history.
Van Allsburg has twice received the treasured Caldecott medal, given each year by the American Library Association for outstanding illustration of children’s picture book by an American illustrator. He won the medal for Jumanji, a haunting story of a mysterious board game which comes to life and transports players into a very real, dangerous jungle, and once for his most famous work, The Polar Express, a wondrous Christmas journey to the North pole. Van Allsburg has received many other awards for his work including the distinguished Regina Medal for lifetime achievement received in 1993.
Three of his books have been made into successful full length movies, The Polar Express, an animated film starring Tom Hanks, Jumanji, a live action film starring the late Robin Williams, and Zathura, a live action outer space adventure.
Another of Van Allsburg’s haunting and creative works, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, may be a focus of a future newsletter. The introduction to the book describes a situation in which a person named Harris Burdick comes to the office of a picture book publisher. Burdick presents fourteen pictures with captions. He tells the intrigued publisher that each picture is associated with a story he has written. The publisher is eager to read the stories. Burdick leaves his fourteen pictures with the publisher and promises to return the next day with the fourteen stories, but he never returns. Van Allsburg, with his characteristic surrealistic flare, leaves it to the reader of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick to imagine what story could be written to accompany each picture.
As an example, what story would be sparked for you by the cover picture and caption below?
ANOTHER PLACE, ANOTHER TIME
If there was an answer, he’d find it there
Thank you for reading!
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