A Voice for Independent Authors

REVIEWING TODAY: DUCKWORTH – THE DIFFICULT CHILD BY MICHAEL SUSSMAN & Júlia Sardà (Illustrator)

Sometimes with children’s books, with the very best of books, a perfect collaboration of author and artist comes together to celebrate a truly terrific story. Such is the case with Michael Sussman (author) and Júlia Sardà (Illustrator) in their brilliant co-creation, Duckworth – The Difficult Child. So much is done right inside this marvelous addition to children’s literature, it is difficult to pinpoint the most important details. Begin with this: Somehow, some way, Sussman and Sardà blend perfectly two contrasting attributes of storytelling – the subtle and the bold – in order to convey the deeply ambivalent psychological dichotomy between adult and child. While the child reader will immediately accept Duckworth’s version of reality as true, the astute adult reader, while presuming what must be real, will still be made to wonder just a bit.

As Duckworth – The Difficult Child opens, Michael Sussman and Júlia Sardà concur: Duckworth (according to his parents, a most difficult child) confronts a huge snake emerging from his closet. Eventually, the snake swallows him. Child and adult reader are initially in agreement. The parents, however, claim Duckworth is just fantasizing in an inexplicably-obtained cobra costume. The fantastic and delightful pictures of Júlia Sardà boldly validate Duckworth’s truth. Michael Sussman is more subtle. As an all-too-familiar, tension-filled scene rapidly unfolds between the child’s broadly dramatic, imaginative reality and the circumscribed limits of maturity-dulled perception, one is left to wonder along with each of these participants: Who, here, is being difficult?  On this, the child and adult will not agree.

M. SUSSMAN

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