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When Holland is caught stealing and joins the army to avoid jailtime, he is sent south, where he begins to paint the beautiful palm trees, parrots, flowers, and fish he finds there.
About the author
JONARNO LAWSON is the author of numerous books for children and adults, including
The Playgrounds of Babel, illustrated by Piet Grobler, and
Leap!, illustrated by Josée Bisaillon. He has also collaborated on books with Nelson Ball, Alec Dempster, Nahid Kazemi, Amjad Jaimoukha, Qin Leng, Daniel Ratthei and Sherwin Tjia. His most recent book is
Wise Up! Wise Down!, a collaboration with the poet John Agard, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura. JonArno lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his family.
Summary
From the international best-selling author of Sidewalk Flowers and the illustrator of The King of the Birds, a picture book about crime, punishment…and art.
When Holland is arrested for the thirty-seventh time for stealing beautiful things, he must make a very difficult decision. A police officer says that he must either go to jail or become a soldier. He chooses to join the army and is sent south, where he finds himself surrounded by beautiful things: palm trees, parrots, flowers and big blue waves…and fish!
Holland starts painting pictures of the fish, which he sells at the market on the weekend. Soon, he has money to send home to his parents. They are worried that he’s gone back to his stealing ways, so his father writes to ask if he earned the money honestly. Holland writes back to reassure him that he has decided to paint instead of steal because “not everything that’s pretty can be stuffed in your pockets!”
Based on a true story about JonArno Lawson’s uncle, and accompanied by Natalie Nelson’s collage illustrations, this quirky picture book is about making choices – and art.
Key Text Features
author’s note
true story
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3
Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
Additional text
Praise for Uncle Holland
"A delightfully offbeat testament to being delightfully offbeat." — Booklist
"Sophisticated yet playful, this is an unusual, original work recommended for most picture book collections." — School Library Journal
"Austere and quirky, with lots of room for conversations." — Kirkus Reviews
"A good reminder that you don't have to be a figure of historical importance to have a captivating life story." — Horn Book
Praise for Sidewalk Flowers
"A quiet, graceful book about the perspective-changing wonder of humble, everyday pleasures." — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
"An emotionally moving, visually delightful ode to the simple powers of observation and empathy. . . . A book to savor slowly and then revisit again and again." — School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
Praise for The King of the Birds
"Readers with a taste for the quirky will flock to this tale" — Kirkus
