A Life Song by Jane Godwin and Anna Walker

Title: A Life Song

Author: Jane Godwin and Anna Walker

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Puffin

Published: 3^rd October 2023

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 32

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: From the award-winning team that created classics such as Don’t Forget, All Through the Year, Tilly, and Starting School, comes an exquisite, universal and captivating picture book that carries us through a child’s life journey on the magical metaphor of song.

When you are born, you make up a song
It doesn’t rhyme, and it isn’t long
A song of everything you hold dear
It’s your own tune, it’s loud and clear

And your whole world is in it…
A musical journey from the time a child’s life song first begins, through all its modulations, adding new verses and extra voices through the years, until it becomes their own unique composition – and one that is ultimately a part of the beautiful, grand and glistening score of the world.

~*~

Jane Godwin has returned with a new picture book, this time celebrating life and growth. Her new story celebrates birth and life, and its ups and downs through the eyes of a child and the things that make up their Life Song. 

A Life Song is lyrical, a story for all ages, showing that the lives we live have music to them that begins when we are born, and grows throughout our lives. I have read several of her novels before, and she always has a heartfelt story dealing with the intricacies of life and the events that make us realise that we cannot always know what is coming. That there are things that are unexplainable and our life song, as this book indicates, takes these on. Just as our life song takes on joy, grief, love, and everything in between on our life journey. The words flow lyrically, like song, and they are filled with emotion and can speak to readers of all ages on different levels, to show us that the big feelings we have in our life song are valid at whatever stage in life we are at. This is an engaging story that had me in love with it from the first words, from the first images from Anna that make Jane’s words dance as well as sing across the pages.

Like many picture books, this one rhymes, but its slow and rhythmic feel made me think that it needs to be read slowly and savoured, not rushed. It’s the kind of story you might read in quiet moments or at bedtime, or to calm down. Or for older readers, as a reminder that it is our experiences that make us who we are and remind us to breathe, and to take time to see the world clearly. Especially when it might not feel as though it is. This feels like a very special book, one that you might give as a new baby present, and one that I think can be appreciated on many different levels by readers of all ages, and reassures us that whilst we experience life in different ways, there are some things that are common to all lives, and it lets us know that we are not alone when awful things happen. I think this showed that everyone our life songs will be unique – and make us who we are. 

A wonderful book from Jane Godwin.