Review - Owen at the Park

Owen at the Park
by Scot Ritchie
Date: 2019
Publisher: Groundwood Books
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

It’s a busy morning in the park. All along the boulevard, families are picnicking and people are napping, playing checkers and reading on the grass. But Owen and his dad are hard at work, raking and mowing the grass. And today, Owen gets to do the best job all on his own. With his dad’s encouragement, Owen gathers his courage and goes around to everyone in the park. He tells the families, the checkers players and the readers what he has to do, and they rush off. Finally, when the park is empty, it is the moment Owen has been waiting for. He turns the tap for the sprinkler system, and water cascades over the trees and flower beds.

In creating this book, Scot Ritchie was inspired by his trip to the beautiful Tiergarten park in Berlin. Owen at the Park is a sweet story illuminating the small pleasures in everyday life and the excitement of a child taking on new responsibilities.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is nothing but child-labour apologist propaganda. It's not about a child taking on normal responsibilities like cleaning his room or putting away the dishes. It's about a child with a disabled father who can't handle the job on his own, so he uses his kid for free labour. It doesn't mesh with the modern European-like setting. (Why isn't this poor kid in school? Instead, he has to watch everyone else enjoy the park while he does chores in it.)

The illustrations are cartoonish, and wouldn't be out of place in a graphic novel. But they left me cold. (Or maybe I just couldn't get past the whole message of the book.)

Just because Owen likes one aspect of working in the park doesn't make it right. Just because his father can't do his job on his own doesn't mean he gets to use his kid to pick up the slack.

There may not be laws against this sort of thing, but that still doesn't make me like what I read here.

Premise: 1/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 1.17 out of 5