Jim McGugan’s second picture book is a tale of two brothers, named Owen and Prune. Owen has a rule for everything, from the proper way to eat Crème Caramel to the proper way to read. These rules are arbitrary, a combination of Owen’s self-interest and his insatiable need for structure. According to Owen, for example, the oldest sibling gets to be the goalie during the family’s weekly pick-up hockey games. That means Kelly, the young sister and narrator of the story, never gets to play net. By contrast, Kelly’s brother Prune hates rules, and lives under the Number 6 Railroad Bridge rather than exist in a house with his controlling older brother. One afternoon, when Owen is being particularly sluggish on the ice and stubborn about his rules, Prune takes up Kelly’s cause and the pond becomes the arena where the family conflicts finally come to a head.

What separates Bridge 6 from other picture books is the way in which McGugan develops his characters. The story is driven by the continuous power struggle between the two brothers and the possibility – clearly Kelly’s fear – that the family may be pulled apart by their differences. This is the stuff of novels, but McGugan makes the story work in picture book format. The hockey game, a familiar forum for conflict and competition, is used to explore mature themes. Although the characters’ underlying emotions are complicated, their actions and reactions are made accessible to younger audiences.

As with his award-winning first book, Josepha: A Prairie Boy’s Story, McGugan has been paired with an original illustrator– this time, Judith Christine Mills. Mills’s paintings feature forced perspective with a folk art quality: simple, rich, colourful, uncluttered. Certainly, they’re unique illustrations, appropriate for this exceptional follow-up to McGugan’s earlier success.