WHEN MY DAD WENT TO THE JUNGLE

City kid Theo narrates their father’s trip to “the mother of all jungles”—as well as the young protagonist’s own silly attempts to pantomime the Indigenous ways of life relayed in their father’s tales.

For example: When Theo learns that “the people in the jungle” include tucus (a variety of large worms) in their diet, the curious child heads for the garden to “[dig] up some earthworms.” The text grows more serious when the storyteller’s father describes the jungle’s environmental plight: the dwindling of the harpy eagle and ranching-induced deforestation. Enchanted by stories of the jungle’s Native population and the spirits who live among them, Theo declares, “If I go to the jungle one day, I’ll tell the spirits that I love them and ask them to come over.” Meanwhile, illustrator Decis depicts Indigenous spirits as white, round-faced creatures with wings and two twigs coming out of their heads; it’s unclear whether this rendering has any resemblance to how Sápara people (identified by name only in the backmatter) view their own spirits. Sadly, Sápara people and their Amazonian home are flattened in this narrative despite the author’s gestures at self-reflection. In a book focusing on the struggles of a Native people, the acknowledgment page and author’s note spend more time applauding the Spanish researcher in charge of Gusti’s expedition into the Amazon for “her inexhaustible struggle to save the South American jungle.”

A disappointing example of exoticization.