Voices in the Park Burning Bush

I found this interview with Anthony Browne online about Voices in the Park. Pretty interesting..

TEACHINGBOOKS: It appears that you do many subtle things in Voices in the Park to further
this message.

ANTHONY BROWNE: There’s a picture in Voices in the Park where the two dogs are racing
around, as the text says, “Like old friends,” and I’ve painted the mongrel dog with the pedigree
dog’s tail and vice versa. That’s just a little way of saying there’s no real difference between them.
The two statues above the dogs represent the woman and the man in the story. They’re set in
stone; they’re never going to change.
Another example of where I’ve used my art to further the message is in the illustration
where Mrs. Smythe and her son, Charles, are walking home. She’s just discovered Charles
talking to a rather rough-looking child, and we can hardly see Charles. He’s hidden behind her,
and totally dominated by her. The text says, “We walked home in silence.” But we can feel the
anger of this woman. We sometimes say somebody’s burning with anger; in this picture, one of
the trees is actually on fire. It in one way reflects her anger, but it also reflects the feeling of
autumn or the fall