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Ezra Jack Keats "The Trip"
The Trip is visually much darker then many of Keat's other picture books, yet like most of his books it holds a grungy feel, portraying the poorer districts of New York. The walls covered with a child like graffity, or made from multiple colors, and strokes, to give them a dirty feel. The story itself has a simple theme, one repeated many times, that of a boy moving to a new area and not having any friends. The main character Louie laments the lack of stairs to sit on outside his building, and with a sigh simply goes inside. In his room he creates a box with a scene inside of it, and a small plane, which he imagines flys up and to his old neighborhood, where he runs into some scary monsters, which chase him around, until at last he realizes that these monsters are his friends dressed up for halloween. Keats is a smart enough illustrator and story teller to reason through every action and every impact of his choices. So what are we to take from the fact that Louies friends where dressed up as monsters when he first went to visit them in his imagination? Obviously part of the reasoning is that it is halloween when this book takes place, but that is an interesting choice of move dates and it only stands to reason that there is a logical explination for it. Simply put by having Louie be afraid of his friends Keats is both showing that memories can be initially painful, for even happy ones are passed, and the desire to reexperiance them can bring sorrow. Keats is also likely showing us that all people can be scary befor you know who they are, even our old friends. This explination gains wait as when Louie returns to reality his mom helps him dress for halloween, and he goes outside with the other laughing kids, who are all wearing costumes. With strong shrap contrasted elements in each picture the art within this children's book appears to almost work as a collauge. And as always aware of his own arts special impact Keats helps to push this fact by having the background people in one picture be real humans placed into his flat painted world. It is this awarness of his own art and his ability to use it to help transmite ideas and messages deep within a basic story that is told so often because it is worth telling makes this book a beautiful and important work of art. |
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