Kitchen tables can serve numerous purposes. We prepare and eat our meals at kitchen tables. Children complete their homework at them. We use them as workstations for various household projects, and we play games around them. Most importantly, we sit around them and tell stories, accounts of our days at work and school and tales passed down from the generations before us. But can a table tell its own story? Authors Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins and artist Jason Griffin examine that question as they “imagine a story only a table could tell.” 

Set in rural Appalachia, The Table depicts the daily life of a large wooden table. Griffith’s mixed-media illustrations largely focus on the table; the two families that feature in the story are shown only by their hands. As he writes in an appended note, this table is more than a setting; it is the story’s main character. In the first half of the story, the table resides in the house of a white family of coal miners. In that multigenerational home, biscuits fresh from the oven are placed on top of it and unwanted peas are snuck underneath it for the hound dog to eat. Easter eggs are painted, and church dresses are sewn. When the father loses his job at the mine, the family must move into a smaller home. The table is abandoned on the side of a dirt road, but it is not there for long. Another family—this one Black—spots it under a tree and agrees to take the “new-old” table home and make it their own. They clean the table and continue to use it in the same ways as the previous family did—for meals, homework, prayer, and important conversations. In this way, the table connects two families and demonstrates that we are more similar than we are different.  

The scenes from The Table are detailed perfectly within Griffin’s multilayered double-page spreads. His illustrations match the authors’ poetic text through the precise use of color and imagery. Whereas Bingham’s and Blevins’ words are expressive, perhaps even allegorical at times, Griffin constructs images filled with sensory details. The sun shines in on a basket of biscuits, freshly painted Easter eggs sit in a basket of bright green grass, butterflies and oak leaves rest on top of the wooden table, and moonlight streams through the window. The scenes vary in complexity in such a way that the reader is frequently surprised by the turn of the page. Children (and adults) will find themselves asking “what images will my eyes see next?” as they read or follow along. Additionally, the acrylic on paper illustrations expertly convey both meaning and tone throughout the story. Furthermore, the visual power of the artwork in The Table stems from its contrasts. The sad scenes—for instance when there is a reference of Grandaddy’s illness or when the family moves into a tiny trailer—feature darker tones, but the more hopeful scenes are awash in brilliant greens and blues and the beauty of the mountains in the background.  

Griffin received a 2023 Caldecott Honor for his illustrations in Jason Reynolds’s Ain’t Burned All the Bright. Will the Committee recognize The Table as well? I believe this book meets all the criteria for being a distinguished picture book for children. However, The Table excels its “pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept.” When I teach storytelling to my students, we discuss the “identity character,” the character the audience will most likely relate to in the narrative. The table is the identity character in this picture book. Griffin’s colorful mixed-media and thoughtful use of details bring this old wooden table to life. Although the table is never personified in this book, readers recognize it as the central character thanks to Griffin’s exquisite interpretation of Bingham’s and Blevins’ theme and concept.

[Read The Horn Book Magazine review of The Table]