Lyrics by Bob Dylan
Illustrated by Jon J. Muth
With CD of Dylan's original recording
Sterling, 2011
$17.95, ages 5 and up, 28 pages
In this sublime picture book adaptation, a paper airplane gliding across the sky becomes a breathtaking metaphor for the roles we all play in making a better world.
Award-winning Jon Muth meditates on Bob Dylan's remarkable 1963 protest song with sweeping illustrations steeped in symbolism, the most resonant being that of the toy plane.
Four children of differing skin color are taken by skiff across expanses of water and shown scenes that make them at turns reflective, sad, uncomfortable, and ultimately, ready to face up to a difficult truth:
That unjust things occur in the world and it is up to each of them to do something about them.
Passing overhead in almost every spread, a folded airplane symbolizes "the answer" in Dylan's refrain, "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind," a figurative verse about opening one's heart to all of humanity.
