Barry

Colin Thompson (author/illustrator)

Random House, Australia: August 2011 ISBN: 9781864718836

Genres: picture book, satire

Issues: climate change, environment

Barry is an interplanetary robot who stores most of his brain on his home planet, which is 'far, far away behind a galaxy that time forgot'. In 1952 Barry came to Earth to save the world but he got stuck down the back of a sofa. Determined to complete his programming, Barry tries to control the world without being able to see it. So things like droughts, floods and global warming started happening. Can Barry find his way into the light in time to save the planet?

Colin Thompson's wonderfully warped and bleakly satirical sense of humour has become a constant in Australian children's literature and we are all the richer for it. In Barry he acknowledges the complexity of the climate change issue but also the determination of many to remain safely in the dark, warm, familiar place of blind ignorance and not really pay attention to the consequences of humanity's actions – or lack of action. Barry is one of the finest examples yet of Thompson's capacity to reference social and political attitudes, complex theories and historical data in an apparently light-hearted story that will make all readers laugh.

His illustrations, as always, interact cohesively with the story, carrying the narrative (and his embedded commentary) well beyond the text. They draw the reader in with such subtlety that when the conclusion – almost a punchline, in this case – is reached, the reader finds themselves suddenly confronted with an image that is not so much amusing as terrifying.

Definitely a tragic clown, Thompson's picture books over the past few years have mostly been bittersweet stories that contain an impassioned and heart-broken cry to humanity to wake up and value this incredibly precious world and the short amount of time we are given to spend here; to start caring for one another and  our planet before we destroy it – and each other. Barry can be ready on many levels but it's an undoubted discussion starter for classes examining environmental issues and socio-political responses to them.

Highly recommended.

Same author: Sometimes Love Is Under Your Foot; The Short But Incredibly Happy Life if Riley; The Violin Man; Free To A Good Home