Some atmospheric drama but otherwise an unengaging story.
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
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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