The Treasure Box by Margaret Wild

The Treasure Box is a sensitive portrayal of the effects of war through the medium of a picture book. The opening line sets the tone of this story immediately.
"When the enemy bombed the library, everything burned." War wrecks havoc upon the culture of a nation, destroying memory and tradition. But sometimes there are ways to protect and remember that culture.

After the bombing, People catch the charred paper that floats to the ground, all that remains of the books that once populated their library. But one book survives-the book Peter's father has signed out from their library. In an act of war Peter and his father, along with others in their village, are ordered to leave and their homes are burned.

To preserve this favourite book, Peter's father places it into an iron box and carries it as they walk from town to town. But the harsh journey soon takes its toll and Peter's father sickens and dies. Peter promises to keep safe their treasure, the book in the iron box. However, the iron box soon becomes too heavy for Peter to carry so he makes the decision to bury the box beneath a tall linden tree at the edge of the last village. Years later Peter returns to search for the iron box and its precious contents.

This simple yet evocative story captures the effects of war, the plight of refugees, and the loneliness and loss children experience in wartime through the subdued artwork of Freya Blackwood and Margaret Wild's sparse text.  At the beginning of the story, Blackwoods illustrations are in muted browns, greys, blues and ochre representing the devastation of war. Only the precious book, representing the hope of peace and the future, is coloured red. But when Peter returns to the village as an adult, in peacetime, the Blackwood fills her illustrations with the bright colours of orange, red, and greens. Australian illustrator, Blackwood, worked as a special effects artist on the Lord of the Rings movies (she worked on the hobbit's feet) but is also a prize-winning illustrator of children's books. She was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration in a children's book for Harry and Hopper published in 2010.

The illustrations for The Treasure Box are rendered in pencil and watercolor and are a mixture of collage and paper cutouts. Blackwood used the text from the foreign editions of The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett and of Once and Then by Morris Gleitzman. This gives a unique look to the story book.

Book Details:

The Treasure Box by Margaret Wild
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press    2013