The Island

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In his interview with Nikki Gamble for the Just Imagine, ‘In the Reading Corner’ podcast, Greder stated ‘I tell stories about the way the world is, not the world as it should be’. What a horrible reflection we see when we look in the mirror that Greder holds up for us here. The grocer refuses to feed him –‘We don’t have enough for everyone!’. The schoolteacher ‘lectures about savages and their strange ways’. The Island tells the tale of a man who is washed ashore on a poorly made raft. We’re told he was different to the people of the island, this causes the people to fear and reject him. I’m being too kind here, they don’t simply just reject him, they take his voice away, treat him as an animal and eventually condemn him to a fate we can only too easily imagine.All the usual concerns about immigration are lightly understated in the text and fleshed out with a cruel humour in the illustrations. He will eat all our food, cry the villagers. Then give him a job, suggests the good fisherman. "'If he was in my kitchen, nobody would want to eat at my inn,' muttered the inkeeper." This exchange takes place beneath a picture of the interloper paddling his grubby hands in the food while all around him is squalor. The text and pictures work against each other to both illustrate the villagers' fears and illuminate the viciousness of their prejudices. Armin Greder’s acclaimed picture book The Island has been republished in the UK. It is lamentably relevant, with obvious parallels between the story and the plight of people migrating across the English Channel to our own island. And perhaps this is why, somehow, this already very hard-hitting book feels particularly haunting and punchy, reading it in 2022.

While most of the stories we have featured for our immigrant theme share narratives of assimilation and a renegotiation of one’s identity, this ‘foreigner’ was never given that opportunity to even feel remotely a sense of belonging. The ending was painful and tragic and leaves one with a sense of bated breath and a query in one’s head, “oh dear, that’s it?” Yet, in most cases, the truth is that, oftentimes it is all there is – thus the hate crimes, genocide, senseless murders – the darker shades of humanity as hauntingly portrayed in the illustrations of this powerful book. What happens to the fisherman I leave for you to discover. This illustration portrays the disturbing manner through which the children adopt the adults’ ways of being – searingly painful. Lesson 6. Using the visual to create a counter text: Modelling, joint construction and independent construction Starkly illustrated in a sombre expressionist style brightened by a few pertinent flashes of colour, this brilliant and haunting picture book painfully captures the violent hatred that the most harmless of outsiders can engender. When I started writing this I claimed this book was probably the most important picture book of recent times. I said this because increasingly in the media there are more and more reports about hostility between people, and more than often it is directed at those suffering from those in places of privilege. For example, in the UK, in some places by some people, there is a searing animosity towards refugees. Well, I was wrong to have said this. This is not probably the most important picture book of recent times. This is one of the most important books to have been released to date, I believe it is timeless, I believe this book can actually help us. Please go out and buy this book! Buy it for your children, your friends, parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, buy it for strangers! Books have the power to mend minds and hearts, and with the utmost sincerity, hand on my heart, I know they can mend the world too.There is so much depth to this picture book! From the hauntingly memorable charcoal illustrations Greder is able to speak a thousand words. His depiction of the washed up man as naked, slender and hairless contrasts dramatically to the full-bodied, clothed people of the island. I think it’s clear what Greder was trying to convey through his choices to illustrate his characters as such, wealth, culture and history all playing their part in the construction of attitudes towards difference. I keep asking myself if there was a reason for why the washed up man is depicted as fair-skinned. I haven’t come up with an answer to this which I’m completely happy with yet, but I suppose this choice proposes the idea that hatred is evolving. Read into that what you will. Welcome guide, description, letter of advice, analysis, comparison, diary entry in role, imagined conversation Main Outcome: Although the Islanders take the man 'in', they are unwilling to share their own resources and jobs, making the selfish nature of the people all the more prevalent. This can be seen as drawing a striking parallel with some attitudes shown towards refugees and migrants within the UK. Therefore, this is a critical text that should be used to consolidate a welcoming ethos within schools and towards different cultures and communities, so that they can prevent becoming 'The Island' Similar to the book I reviewed yesterday for our Festival of Asian Literature and the Immigrant Experience theme, The Rabbits, this book by Armin Greder is also recommended to me by Librarian Extraordinaire Benjamin Farr from Tanglin Trust School. And what an awesome recommendation it turned out to be. Like The Rabbits, this picture book is a powerful masterpiece all its own. Supporting students’ phonological awareness and phonics using the Response to Intervention (RTI) model