Too Many Acorns
Too Many Acorns
Susannah Crispe
EK Books, 2024
32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99
9781922539748
As Patrick steps out of the door, hand in hand with his dad, an acorn plops at his feet and he picks it up, enjoying the feel of its warmth and smoothness in his hand. It’s a feeling he’s known before and he likes it so much that he begins to collect every acorn he finds – and being Autumn and surrounded by oak trees, that’s a lot. He puts them everywhere, stores them everywhere, the finding of them and the growing collection becoming an obsession – blocking out all the other feelings that are threatening to overwhelm him, the cause of which can be identified by the astute reader examining the details in the illustrations.
Then one day, when the collection is so large it bursts out of the house, so too do the emotions that Patrick has been feeling….
On the surface, this is a story about a young boy finding joy and comfort in little things, and seeking to repeat that warm fuzzy feeling by collecting and keeping more of them, and who finds fun and satisfaction in seeing his collection grow, until it becomes bigger than he ever imagined. Whether it is acorns, soft toys, or books, or anything else, it will be familiar to those who are collectors – you should see my stash of fabric and yarn – and each addition, whether found or gifted or earned, is a cause for celebration, often to the chagrin of those around them.
But, at a deeper level, perhaps for the slightly older reader who is able to take a step back from the here-and-now, it is the collecting itself that becomes the driver as they seek to recreate that initial feeling, particularly if it masks others that are not so pleasant or gives them a buzz because there is a hole in their heart. In some ways, it is like the precursor to the drug addict who needs bigger and more frequent fixes to get the high.
And so the story can become a conversation starter for helping little ones begin to articulate their feelings, particularly those big emotions like loss and grief and anger that are hard to put into words, building both self-awareness and self-management as they learn to identify their emotional responses and express these appropriately. Just as Patrick’s house becomes consumed by acorns, blocking off everything physically, so his heart is consumed by loss and he is blocked emotionally from his dad as he, too, deals with his grief alone while trying to keep things normal for Patrick. But there are touches of humour, particularly in the illustrations, that not only brighten the storyline but demonstrate that it is okay, and necessary, to find laughter and lightness even in the darkest times.
Grief , even though it might not be caused by something as profound as Patrick’s loss, is a journey we all travel through at our own pace and deal with in our own way and so stories like these, which not only demonstrate that such feelings are common and natural, are a valuable way of building a child’s emotional intelligence so if they find themselves in that situation, they have a better understanding of themselves and those around them. But perhaps the most important message of all comes in the endpaper where Patrick is sweeping away all the acorns because he and his dad have found a way to smile again, and, as novelist Victor Hugo said, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”.
