WHY THE WIND GOD WEPT

by Eve Titus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1972

A senseless, pretentious pseudo-legend purporting to reveal how the warrior and the hunter failed to discern why the wind god wept and how the lowly poet came up with the answer. Titus' prose is meant to evoke the stately cadence and elemental reverberation of hallowed myth, but her formal language and inverted word order is merely distant and unnatural: ""Then forward strode a warrior tall and stalwart. A feathered cloak he wore, adorned with turquoise, and golden plumes upon his noble brow."" And to the extent that the warrior's and the hunter's speculations (the first guesses that the wind god weeps because his temple is not large enough, the second that the temple is not tall enough) are unsatisfactory as intended, the winning answer -- the wind god weeps because his temple is not round -- is ludicrously disappointing. With their surreally superimposed, elaborate Mexican Indian motifs in deep turquoise and earth colors, Barkley's skilled but totally uninvolving pictures take their cue from the ill-conceived text.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972

Categories: CHILDREN'S