Cargo

Cargo is a less-than-ordinary contribution to the catalogue of picture books about transportation. A bird flies over the ocean and looks down onto the surface, providing a narrative about the progress of a massive cargo ship.

Tonight I am a bird. A seagull.
I soar, gliding above the water.
The sea spray splashes my wings.
My shadow follows me along the swells,
And then… I see him.

“He” is a lone man approaching the steps up to the deck of the ship. He is a miniature, a toy in comparison to the size of the vessel.

The gull observes the departure from port and sees the man standing at the railing, looking down on the ocean. The bird is concerned for the man’s well-being as waves begin to roll and a storm comes up. The threat passes, and the man, who seems to be the captain of the cargo ship, goes below deck to check on activity in the engine room. Next, he is seen on the bridge, binoculars in hand. The gull continues to watch.

Then one day I can smell land. A thick fog
surrounds us, and the ship doesn’t move.
The anchor is lowered into the depths of the sea.
Nothing moves. Silence. For a long time.

When the fog lifts and a pilot boat comes to guide the cargo ship, readers are suddenly presented with the bright image of a busy harbour, with colourful buildings of all sizes rising up a mountainside.

Then the ship leaves port, and the gull abandons its vigil.

I fly out over the great open sea.
This time I leave the ship and fly to the horizon.
Whatever happens to me, my heart remembers his smile.

And readers will smile at the ending, too, for on the last page, readers see the red-bearded captain embracing a little child and being welcomed home.

There is a remarkable stillness in both the text and pictures of this book. Even the storm sequence and the port scene seem to be something out of a dream. Perspective shifts, as readers are high over the ocean in one picture, down on land looking up at the huge bulk of the ship in another, then looking through a porthole at the man. The rendering of the variously-coloured containers on the deck of the ship provides an interesting point of reference. Illustrations are executed in mixed media, with grey and blue tones reminiscent of watercolour punctuated by the strong shapes of some of the ship’s elements in what look like oil pastels.

Both the author and illustrator of Cargo are from France, but the book, originally published in France in 2018, has been published by Orca under the auspices of “the National Translation for Book Publishing, an initiative of Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities”.

Cargo, a quiet story, will be a pleasure to share one-on-one, or for a young reader to enjoy poring over alone.