A SYMPHONY OF WHALES

The true story may be more exciting than its telling in this first effort from Schuch and Sylvada, who give the tale of the real rescue of whales a metaphysical spin. Glashka has a special gift—she can hear the voice of Narna, the whale, as her ancestors once did. A nighttime dream foretells of a fateful event—thousands of whales trapped in the ice. Glashka’s villagers, young and old, chip back the ice to make room for the whales to breathe until the arrival of a Russian icebreaker. Even though the path is clear, the whales are afraid to follow the ship out to open sea; Glashka believes that music will lead the whales to safety. The Russian crew blasts rock-and-roll, and then Russian folk songs, but only a work of classical music brings the desired result. While it’s true that thousands of Beluga whales were trapped in a Siberian strait across from the Bering Sea in Alaska, and that classical music led them to open waters, Glashka comes across not as a person, but as a character created solely for a particular effect. Dense oil paintings serve primarily as backdrops—abstracted dark shapes of whales and ships, sweeps of ice, ocean and sky. The art’s somber style adds weight to a story striving for buoyancy. (Picture book. 6-9)