(courtesy Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Adventures are supposed to be grand and gloriously thrilling things, a step far away from the everyday that takes us to places beyond imagination and our lived experience to date.
And while Haru: Spring, book one of a series that will take its protagonists through the full seasonal scope of the year to find a solution for a hugely concerning problem, is indeed an adventure in every sense of the word, it does go far darker than most people might assume when they hear the word.
That is a good thing, of course, even for the young readers to whom Haru: Spring is directly pitched, because it offers a tale of flawed characters who mean well and have the best intentions but who, due some life circumstances that see them seeking a life other their blighted own, end up going on a journey that maybe not be the best thing to do.
But then best friends Haru the bird and Yama the pig do have a spiky, pressing problem that will not, quite literally, go away, and only one place they have been told they can go to get it sorted and so, impelled by bullying at school and uncertainties at home, they set off to accomplish what they assume in their gloriously youthful naivety will be a quick and easy mission.
It is, as you might expect, nothing of the sort.
Dogged by some very dark and cruelly playful forces, none of whom care who Haru or Yama nor how young they are or what they have on their individual and collective plates, the two besties suddenly discover one great truism of life – what you think and hope will happen is very rarely what comes to pass.
Life is unpredictably messy chaos, something that the author of Haru: Spring, Joe Latham, notes in his introduction when he says “The World’s chaos continues to ebb and flow” but rather than fighting it, perhaps the answer is to lean into it, something that Haru and Yama don’t really comprehend by the end of the book when Haru hopefully states “But I think we’re on the right path now”.
Latham, however, very much does, remarking that “I’m starting to wonder if that’s where real peace lies, in accepting the chaos”, a growing realisation which he brings affectingly to the story of Haru and Yama who “must navigate a world’s chaotic ebb and flow” but are only at the beginning of that particularly instructive journey.
(courtesy Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Fashioned with artwork which is both gorgeously sweet and evocatively intense, Haru: Spring beautifully explores what happens when the low key chaos of lives defined by bullying and home issues suddenly become far more complicated and messy.
Both Haru and Yama start discovering in a journey filled with light and dark, hope and crushing disappointment, that what they thought was easy and straightforward is anything but, and that the people around them will help or hinder them on their huge journey to the purported source of their salvation, the mysteriously far-off beacon.
It’s a lot for two school-age children to handle but they equally rise and don’t rise to the occasion which makes sense – they’re kids, they’re learning about life and doing it, on this journey at least, in the most intense and emotionally searing of ways, and while their friendship, and some unexpected friends (and one family member), helps them out considerably, there’s still a lot to handle for these two young forced adventurers.
Latham’s art and writing, not surprisingly since they come from the same imaginatively fecund and empathetically arresting source, go together beautifully, with the world he has created and the characters who fill it, coming vivaciously and compellingly alive.
Armed with sparklingly moving and charming dialogue and an attention to detail on every artistic front from expansive landscapes to smaller, more closed environments, Haru: Spring is a thoughtfully impacting delight which offers light, fun diversion in part but also some very darkly serious ruminations on friendship, love and truth.
No doubt there will be people who argue kids should not be exposed to that but the truth is that many kids of this reviewer’s vintage read stories as children that didn’t hold back on how scary and threatening life can be but which, like Haru: Spring, also celebrate the magic, endless support and reassurance of friends and family and how those connections make all the difference on the challenging adventure of growing up.
Haru: Spring perfectly and movingly conveys what it is like to find yourself coming of age feeling well and truly in over your head, and how sacrifices of all kinds must be made on the bumpy road to adulthood (and yes, naturally, beyond) but that scary those situations are that we are able to handle them because of the people around us who make all the difference in the world, even when the odds seem to be very much against us.
Haru: Spring (Book 1) is available through Andrews McMeel Publishing.
(courtesy Andrews McMeel Publishing)