Virginia Wolf

From the creative duo of Spork comes the imaginative tale of two sisters — one who is depressed and the other who will do whatever it takes to help her sister shake the blues. This story was inspired by British writer Virginia Woolf and her sister, painter Vanessa Bell. The real Virginia Woolf suffered through periods of depression her entire life.

The story opens with Vanessa explaining that her sister Virginia woke up in a wolfish mood. She doesn’t want Vanessa to paint her picture or to visit with any of her friends. As Maclear writes “The whole house sank. / Up became down. / Bright became dim. / Glad became gloom.” No matter what Vanessa does, she can’t pull Virginia out of her depressive state.

In a tender moment shared by the sisters, Virginia says that she might feel better if she was flying. When Vanessa asks where she would like to go, Virginia describes the perfect place — “a place with frosted cakes and beautiful flowers and excellent trees to climb...” — a place she calls Bloomsberry.

While Virginia sleeps, Vanessa comes up with a plan that she hopes will help her ailing sister. She grabs her art supplies and decides to paint Bloomsberry. Up until this moment, Arsenault’s colour palette is primarily black, grey and white with touches of red, yellow and blue. However, when Vanessa begins to paint Bloomsberry, the pages explode in colour. The effect is similar to the moment when Dorothy opens the door to reveal Munchkinland in all its Technicolor glory in the film version of The Wizard of Oz. When Virginia awakes from her sleep, she takes notice of Vanessa’s efforts and joins in helping to create Bloomsberry. At this moment “The whole house lifted. / Down became up. / Dim became bright. / Gloom became glad.”

Throughout the story, Arsenault paints Virginia as a dark silhouette of a wolf. At the end, when Virginia has recovered, the illustrator provides a visual surprise for readers.

This gentle story, hand lettered by the illustrator herself and with artwork rendered in mixed media that was digitally assembled, will introduce young readers to the topic of depression in a sensitive manner. Arsenault’s exquisite artwork is perfectly paired with Maclear’s emotionally powerful text.

One day Virginia wakes up in a wolfish mood, and when her sister Vanessa tries to cheer her up, nothing works — not even making funny faces at their brother. Finally Vanessa decides to bring the outside inside by painting trees, strange candy blossoms, green shoots and frosted cakes on the walls of their room. This is a tale that looks at depression and celebrates the transformative power of art.