Eyes that Speak to the Stars

Eyes that Speak to the Stars

Eyes that Speak to the Stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes that Speak to the Stars

Joanna Ho

Dung Ho

HarperCollins, 2022

40pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9780063057753

The little boy is just like any other little boy in a bedroom that could be anyone’s  with a train tack on the floor of his bedroom and s solar system above his bed. But when his friend Kurt draws a pictures of his friends. and drew the little boy with two straight lines for eyes, he is devastated.  It had never occurred to him that he was any different to his class mates.  When he tells his Baba, his Baba is very wise and tells him, “Your eyes rise to the skies and speak to the stars.  The comets and constellations show you their secrets, and your eyes can foresee the future,  Just like mine.”

And for the first time the little boy realises that his eyes are not only like his baba’s but also his old and wise agong’s and his baby brother Di-Di’s.  And he begins to understand…  as he discovers that his eyes are a mirror of those of the those whom he so adores and admires, both past and present, he realises that his eyes are powerful and visionary too. “My eyes shine like sunlit rays that break through dark and doubt, They lift their sights on paths of flight that soar above the clouds.  My eyes gaze into space and glimpse trails of light inviting my into impossibilities.”  His eyes are so much more than their shape, and a depiction in a picture. 

Like its predecessor, Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, this is a story of awareness, acknowledgement and empowerment written in the most poetic language that we are coming to associate with this  author’s writing, and accompanied by glorious pictures that are so full of colour and detail and upward movement that the reader is as uplifted as the little boy . 

Rather than just being a parallel to Eyes the Kiss, this book builds on that and together would make the most powerful foundation for this year’s Harmony Day celebrations. 

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