The Swing under the Maple Tree: Flying High with Magic in Illustrations By Agustina Palenque

Published: 7 March 2023

Blog by CLMC student Agustina P

The Swing under the Maple Tree: Flying High with Magic in Illustrations

By Agustina P

Nina is swinging in the playground. It is her favourite game because “if you swing really hard, you can fly up high”. While she is swinging, she can see her friend’s grandfather planting some flowers.

“What is the name of these?”, Nina asks.

“Delphinium”, Marko’s grandpa says.

“I like that name. Having delphinium near the playground is almost like having real dolphins”.

Following Nina’s imagination, we can see two big friendly dolphins dancing with her. Nina is having so much fun! However, sometimes mistakes get in the way, as Nina accidentally steps on the delphinium sprouts. But she is not alone. With her father’s help, Nina will find a way to amend her mistake and recover the delphiniums (and the dolphins) for the yard.

This bilingual Ukrainian-English picturebook with charming illustrations focuses on Nina’s perspective and emotions. When asked about this work, her first picturebook, Halyna Tkachuk described two emotions present at the core of this story: “the joy of flying on a swing and the burning shame of trampled flowers”. According to Tkachuk, the work of the illustrator made the book seem “light, colourful, juicy and full of joy, but with an almost imperceptible drop of sadness in the background”.

Readers may relate to Nina’s emotions. She goes from the happiness of flying on the swing to despair after her slip, expressed as an urge to “run away from everyone”. With light words and a simple storyline, Halyna Tkachuk beautifully conveys both feelings. Her wonderful use of language and the pace of the story are completed by Oksana Bula’s clear drawings. With the play of light and shadow, colour and darkness, space and movement, the illustrator depicts the changing feelings of this young girl. Using simple strokes, the artist adds a brilliant touch to each moment of this story, creating a varied yet unified work.

The Swing under the Maple Tree is part of Becoming Global: Bilingual Ukranian-English Picturebooks (2014), an independent project that started with crowdfunding at kickstarter. The idea behind it was to “contribute to language study, the knowledge of Ukrainian culture, and the development of linguistic-aesthetic literacy and global awareness”. As such, the intention of this book is to introduce international readers to an everyday scene in the life of a young girl having fun at a playground in Kyiv. The author mentions that one of the first decisions she made when she started working on this picturebook was that it should be atmospheric and about Kyiv on an ordinary day and that it should find the unusual in the ordinary.

Finally, The Swing under the Maple Tree  is not only an interesting example of bilingual picturebooks, but it also offers a noteworthy perspective on emotional repertoires. “This is our yard”, says Nina at the very beginning of the story. In this book, our is not only Nina’s family. Our yard belongs to a broader community. As the author focuses on the child protagonist, she illustrates the way her everyday life is connected to others. Thus, this book may open important conversations about who is us in the story and why Nina is so ashamed of ruining the flowers under the maple tree. Hence, The Swing under the Maple Tree invites us to re-think the connection between emotions and society or, in other words, between the social and subjective dimensions of human emotions.

 

Book Details

The Swing under the Maple Tree (КНИЖЦІ “ГОЙДАЛКА ПІД КЛЕНОМ)

Halyna Tkachuk (auth.), Oksana Bula (illust.)

Kyiv: Bratske Publishers, 2014


First published: 7 March 2023