Jonah and the Great Fish - Warwick Hutton (Author)
Warwick Hutton (Illustrator)
Published by Margaret K. McElderry
Winner - 1984 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Picture Books Winner
Nominated - 1984 New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books
JONAH AND THE GREAT FISH
ON the Day of Atonement, the congregation reads from the Book of Jonah. They cry out from the belly of the great fish to the One who may hear them, to see and deliver them. In ''Moby Dick,'' Father Mapple preaches the sermon on Jonah, a sailor of weak faith overtaken by his God. For the children of Walt Disney, Jonah is transformed into Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who would be a child, who lies and is swallowed by a whale.
Warwick Hutton retells the story of ''Jonah and the Great Fish'' through 15 watercolors of startling resonance, texture and conviction. A spare text, tagged from the first three of the four chapters of the prophetic book, links the pictures into a narrative.
Jonah gets the call in a Moorish pavilion. Framed by pillars, attended by three creatures of dry land - a camel, a serpent and a lizard - the prophet points a finger at his breast and seems to ask, ''Who, me?'' Startled, he flees with his shadow before him down to the coast, to the port of Joppa (now Jaffa, in Israel), to a calm sea and sky. From the stone pier, he boards a lateen-rigged freighter bound for Tarshis, that is, Spain.
At sea, a storm blows up from out of the blue. The black squall, heralded by a great wave worthy of Hokusai, drives the heavy-laden ship before it. Porpoises, gulls and small fry attend as the storm engulfs boat and sky. The desperate sailors jettison the cargo; the lightened ship, sprit and eye, rides the foam of the purple crest like some great fish.
Two seagulls, at their ease, watch the sailors draw lots to find who has caused the storm. It is Jonah. He stands in the darkness, and commands the sailors to throw him overboard. As the spars break and the oars wash away, the ship turns her beam to the blast. At the last, the sailors cast the prophet into the water.
As Jonah plummets headlong into the deep, calm returns from the right; below, the form of the great fish materializes in the colors of stormy water. An eel, an octopus, a shadowy shark and a couple of crabs witness the prophet's entry into the great fish's toothed jaws.
The belly of the fish is like an arched tunnel with ribs for vaults. The floor is a carpet of fish, big fish swallowing smaller swallowing smaller still. Lying on his stomach atop a large fish with his ankles crossed so they resemble a fishtail, Jonah ponders this revelation of the natural order.
As the Lord can see and hear Jonah's prayer from the belly of the fish, as He could see the great fish even in the storm's murk, so can we. And as Jonah surfs out of the beast's belly on a surge of fish and vomit, one can almost smell the stink disperse in the shore breeze. Jonah warms and dries himself beside a fire.
Mr. Hutton's watercolors, vivid with sea tang, storm and dread, with human activity and the sublime, paint a tale immediate and plausible. It is also faithful to the Scripture. This is Jonah and the Great Fish, not Jonah and the Whale, the folk version. Such fidelity lends an authority to this slim book that will draw in readers of any age or persuasion. All will appreciate the excellent design, printing and binding. And few will be able to overlook that the city of Niniveh, twice named on the penultimate spread, is once misspelled. That so much thought and care should be undercut by an editor's slip is certainly a shame, and may be a moral, but it is not, I think, a carp. - By Laurance Wieder, a poet and the editor of Brightwaters Press, taught Bible and ancient authors at Cornell University. Published: New York Times. April 22, 1984
JONAH AND THE GREAT WHALE, retold and illustrated by Warwick Hutton (McElderry/ Atheneum, $12.95). The familiar biblical tale done in wonderfully dramatic watercolors. The very softness of the hues and the subtlety of the drawings make all the more awesome the magnitude of both God's wrath and the great fish's belly. - By Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. Published: New York Times. December 4, 1984