A Sky Full of Kindness [Hardcover]

A really beautiful book telling a glorious story about two birds becoming parents for the first time. The paper cuts are exquisite and the prose delightful. This is a very special picture book about the hopes and fears of becoming a parent and then the wonderful unconditional love that parents feel for their children.

A Sky Full of Kindness - by Rob Ryan
Sceptre £16.99
Reviewed by Leyla
Sanai

It's a long time since a picture book made me weep - I'm thinking
when Babar's mummy was shot in the jungle when I was about four. But
the tears I shed at Rob Ryan's new picture cuttings book were those
that saps like me leak at the sweetly poignant end of films where
love finally trumps great adversity.

If that makes Ryan's new book sound like a bundle of sentimental
schmaltz, think again. Ryan, who is an acclaimed artist and illustrator
who cuts his pictures out of different types and textures of paper, is
no Hallmark bathos barterer. He has collaborated with designers like
Paul Smith and Lulu Guinness and those at Liberty, his charming works
have graced the homes of designers and celebrities, and he has
illustrated both a children's book by Poet Laureate
Carol Anne Duffy called The Gift, and his own fairy story, This is For
You.

A Sky Full of Kindness features the beautiful birds that
flit charmingly through much of his work and is a story along the lines
of The Little Prince or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, guaranteed to
appeal to those of all ages. The purity of the story belies its wisdom -
it can be read on two levels, a literal one for children, where it is
an adventure story with a happy ending, and an allegorical for
adults, where it touches on many universal themes. It tells the simple
but moving tale of a couple of birds in love and expecting their
first child. It tackles not just parenthood but many other topics not
taught in school (or, increasingly, at home): the importance of
kindness (reminding one of Henry James's advice `Three things in human life
are important: the first is to be kind, the second is to be kind; and
the third is to be kind'); the need not to judge others on
appearances; the value of trust and friendship; the power of unconditional
love; the virtue of not becoming paralysed by fear or anxiety; and even
the inevitability of death for all creatures, and how one should not
live in terror of it.

Each frame is one you would happily place on
your living room wall; naive art similar to Picasso's line drawings of doves
carrying olive branches in their beaks. The difference is that Ryan's
technique is actually quite complex, comprising the skilful scissor
gymnastics required to fashion these stunning creatures out of paper
.

In a world where so many try to posit vacuous banality as deep art,
it is beguiling and delightful to be treated to an artist who
makes heart-rendingly wise lessons and gorgeously executed work appear
like child's play.

It's just great. Wonderful to look at, a touching story and highly recommended even if, like me, you are not the sentimental type.