Author: Louise Lintvelt
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Do Thai Thanh
This is one of a pair of reviews I'm doing today of books by the same writer (Louise Lintvelt) and talented artist (Do Thai Thanh). This particular one depicts some interesting life you might find if you went on an African safari. Not that many of us get that chance, but that's why we have books and TV, huh?! A sad omission, again, was plant life. Plants are alive, as indeed are they 'things'! I wish people would pay more attention to them, because they're are critical for life such as ours. Of course, children are not likely to find them as appealing as a lion or an elephant, but that said, I think it's important to get children, even at an early age, to realize how important plants are.
On that same topic, I think it's also important to point out to children what's right under their noses (not literally, although there is bacterial life there!), but in their own back yard and in their neighborhood. Life there is just as important, if not quite as exotic, as that in Africa. Although on a microscopic scale, the life in your own belly button is rather exotic - and very specialized! However that's not what this book's aim is. Here we visit Africa and learn how to count to ten, starting with one crocodile, which is more than enough to make us want to quickly move on to two!
We visit several different ecosystems, but again here, the focus is exclusively upon large mammalian life - apart from the bird at the beginning, which isn't even part of the counting, and the crocodile which kicks it off. There isn't even a flavor of the local people for us to enjoy. It's for this reason that I can't rate this book positively despite another display of fine art from Do Thai Thanh.
It's easy to be cynical about children's books. I try not to be, but in very general terms, they're such insubstantial things, with so little to them: simplistic drawings and barely enough text to tell a story, let alone stimulate young minds. Children don't demand much in this regard, admittedly, but when you see a book which appears to be pumped out for no other motive than mercenary, it's impossible to look upon them benignly.
Most children's books that I've reviewed are not like that, and this one is not one which I would put into that category either, but just because a book isn't created for what appear to be mean motives doesn't mean it merits an automatic positive rating. That way lies insanity! I think our children deserve better than that, and when I see a book which to me is uninspired - even one with gorgeous illustrations like this one, it doesn't inspire me to look upon it favorably in return.
I would have loved to see this author stretch and go off the road most traveled, and bring us something fresh and new. She was getting there in the other book I reviewed: Things you Might See Swimming Under the sea, but this one doesn't even look like it made that much effort, and I can't therefore recommend it.
