THE STORY OF TAOU

by Robert Vavra ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1969

Faced with lifelike full-color photos, seeing is believing--which makes this crypto-fable of a peacock's ascendancy over the quarreling birds on a ""lost island"" a peculiar anomaly. Never mind that the peacock's egg is washed ashore and hatches on the sand, that the species pictured (and identified) don't coexist in nature; never mind even that the birds have outrageous lines (""They all fight so much that they don't have time to. . . teach their children to fly""), that the pictures are so obviously posed--they have to be. And that's the real rub, the distortion of natural grandeur for the purposes of a story, here a puerile version of a legend that has its own distinction. The more magnificent the photos, the more it seems a travesty.

Pub Date: May 25, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dial

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1969

Categories: CHILDREN'S