Freya Blackwood, The Garden of Broken Things, HarperCollins Publishers, May 2024, 32 pp, RRP $26.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781460757550
Number 9 Ardent Street was a lonely place, with windows like sad eyes.
A story’s first line can do so many things: capture attention, conjure emotions, pique curiosity, create anticipation, evoke nostalgia. The opening line to The Garden of Broken Things masterfully achieves all these things and more.
One day, Sadie follows a cat into the scrub behind Number 9 Ardent Street, where tangled vines concealed things from another time … things that had come to a final halt. Deep in the undergrowth, she finds the cat sitting on the lap of a woman, bent with time and weariness. In this garden of broken things, Sadie shares the minutiae of daily life, her reportage stirring deep memories and love within the woman, sparking a heart warming transformation.
Freya Blackwood’s atmospheric illustrations are a visual feast of colour, composition, and contrast, seemingly many things at once: delicate and emotive, playful and powerful, whimsical and grounded; energetic and calming. Negative space not only creates focus but expresses mood, leaving space for the images and readers to breathe. How the creator can do this so seamlessly and evocatively is a marvel.
The book description tells us The Garden of Broken Things celebrates curiosity and the joy of listening. But I think this rich, layered story is about so much more – grief and loss; perception and reality; belonging; memories and honouring the past; nature; resilience; growth and transformation; and ageing.
A gentle, joyful celebration of life and the many ways that we make connections and expand our world.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Maura Pierlot
