A very original and individual book about a twelve-year-old boy who is extraordinary in several ways. Firstly, because he believes he has committed a murder. Secondly, he has synesthesia, which is a when two senses get tied together, so that whenever he hears sound, he sees colour. We are led right into Jasper’s psychedelic world of bursting oranges, reds and greens, soothing blues and disturbing muddy browns. He loves to watch the parakeets which have set up home in his neighbour Bee Larkham’s tree, because their birdsong makes gorgeous shimmering colours.
But his favourite colour is cobalt blue, the sound of his mother’s voice, who died when he was small and was the only person to truly understand his colours, because she shared the same trait. Jasper is also unable to recognise faces, and has learnt to know people by their clothes, or the colour of their voice. But this is tricky, especially when Bee Larkham begins to ask him to deliver secret messages to friends of hers. Bee is a troubled young woman, inconsistent and destructive and something is driving her.
There is a plot here, and it is gripping enough, and revolves around some dark behaviour and the consequences of that in a small community, resulting in danger for all concerned. But the true story is about an autistic boy trying desperately to understand the world around him, his painful isolation, and the sheer beauty of his own inner world and the joyous colours it contains. Jasper can be funny, frustrated, full of rage or just plain baffled, and the story unfolds entirely from his point of view. When life overwhelms him, he paints out his thoughts and frustrations on canvas, and his bedroom is littered with tubes of brightly coloured acrylic paint. Somehow the idea of Jasper attempting all his life to paint the exact blue of his mother’s voice, to calm and comfort him, is truly moving.
