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THE LITTLE COCONUT

Name: THE LITTLE COCONUT
Author: Alicia L. Anderson
ISBN: 978-0990358510

by Alicia L. Anderson illustrated by Sonny Heston ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 23, 2014

Some atmospheric drama but otherwise an unengaging story.

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A little coconut falls from a tree and an island dweller picks it up in this illustrated children’s book with religious themes.

During a rainstorm on a tropical island, a ray of sunlight touches a palm tree. A little coconut falls, landing in the water below. Helpful animals protect the coconut until Christian, who plays a drum and has a mane of wild blond hair, can discover it. Christian brings the coconut home to be part of his family, naming it Mateo, meaning “Gift of God.” Heston’s colorful illustrations do much to help tell the story; they’re particularly effective in showing the storm’s power. In her debut children’s book, Anderson captures a sense of drama: the gathering storm, the radiant light, the island’s animals joining in the joy of Christian’s drumming, the coconut’s relief on being taken home. However, the writing is clumsy and the setup, puzzling. This is a tropical island, and Christian’s drum has a “tribal” sound, yet with his “golden” hair (clearly represented in the illustrations) and “swim trunks,” he’s as Caucasian as can be. This whiff of cultural appropriation may not be appreciated by all parents. As hard as Anderson tries to pull the heartstrings—“The little coconut tenderly started to cry tears of joy. Making the tiniest little whimpering sounds that echoed from within its shell”—a coconut just doesn’t garner much sympathy. Christian’s drum is made from a large coconut, so it’s not as if he has some blanket coconut-protection policy. The story is thin, partly because Anderson continually asserts specialness but doesn’t show how, for example, the coconut is “ ‘Magical’ and ‘Beautiful’ ” or why Christian’s drum is “very unique.” The book is also distractingly full of errors: comma splices, sentence fragments, solecisms, incorrect punctuation, random capitalization, incorrect possessives—not a great example for young readers. An excerpt, sans illustrations, from the next book in the series is appended.

Some atmospheric drama but otherwise an unengaging story.

Pub Date: July 23, 2014

ISBN: 978-0990358510

Page Count: 48

Publisher: UpWORDBound

Review Posted Online: March 26, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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ABIYOYO RETURNS

by Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs & illustrated by Michael Hays ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001

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The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-689-83271-0

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DEAF MUSICIANS
by Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs & illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

- BOOK REVIEW
SOME FRIENDS TO FEED
by Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs & illustrated by Michael Hays

- BOOK REVIEW
TURN! TURN! TURN!
adapted by Pete Seeger & illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin

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CORALINE

by Neil Gaiman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...

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A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.

Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.

Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)