Sally’s Children Book 3/8

Willy and Hugh

By Anthony Browne

Willy and Hugh, by Anthony Browne (1991) is a narrative which tells the story of Willy a young, gentle gorilla who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Throughout the story Willy forms a friendship with Hugh who is a big, strong Gorilla and although the two are very different the story shows how they each bring something special to their friendship.

Browne uses various forms of language throughout his texts in order to create meaningful, dynamic stories. These language features include the use of verbal groups such as action processes, saying processes and mental processes. All three processes describe actions and are used throughout Browne’s work in order to give the characters and stories depth. For example in Willy and Hugh Browne uses action processes such as join in, walking, running, looking, watching, helped, sat down, laughed, stood up, left, read, went, stopped, moved and appeared to describe what the characters are doing. He uses saying processes such as sneered and asked, in order to express how the characters are conversing. He also uses mental processes such as pleased with himself, decided, amazed, and minding his own business, in order to give the reader an insight into what the characters are thinking or feeling (Derewianka 2012). 

Browne also uses common adjectives throughout his texts in order to describe characters and certain events such as in Willy and Hugh (1991) the adjectives lonely, useless and terrifying are used to describe the characters. Although interestingly Browne also uses proper nouns in order to describe the characters through the use of their names. For example in Willy and Hugh the character Hugh Jape, is a huge ape, Buster Nose, is a bully. The descriptive use of these ‘play on words’ helps the reader to establish and visualize the characters by simply reading their names (Derewianka 2012). 

Overall this is a fantastic engaging story which is beautifully written and illustrated. This is why I have chosen to look further into Browne’s work through an author study, and I will blog about these books too.

References:
Derewianka, B. 2012, A New Grammar Companion for Teachers, PETAA, Sydney, Australia, pp. 10-36.