Author: Sally Huss
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WARTY!
I liked the previous outing I'd read by Sally Huss, who both writes and illustrates her books, but this one failed for me. Note this book is not to be confused with Prentke Romich's Who Took the bananas? (which I haven't read).
When it comes to children's stories, I apply somewhat different rules than I do for reviewing young adult and mature novels, of course. Obviously novels have to be realistic, unless they're something like a fantasy, or a paranormal or sci-fi story, but even then they have to make some kind of sense within their own framework. I don't hold a children's story to that level of rigor.
Children's stories can be much more fanciful, as are children's imaginations, and even nonsense stories are fun to read and useful in helping children to think outside the box - not that most of them need any help there! I do like children's stories to have some sort of educational component, but I'm not absolutely rigid with that requirement. Sometimes it's fine just to have fun, and even random play is a learning experience for the young.
In a case where a children's story features animals, I don't mind that animals talk or behave rather like humans, but where the animal is located in its natural setting, even if it's having an adventure that no real animal would, I do like the story to be faithful to its origin. This is why it bothered me to see a Green Mamba snake depicted in this story. This snake isn't found where orangutans are found, so why not use one which is?
I did not get the thinking here, and this wasn't a lone slip, either. The sloth isn't found in Asia, which is the only place where the tragically dwindling orangutan populations are found. Neither are chameleons and toucans found in Asia. Again, there are scores of animals which could have taken these roles, including interesting Asian lizards and stunningly colorful and distinctive Asian birds, so I didn't get why the author felt a need to bring these things into the story when there are plentiful alternatives.
If the story had been set in a zoo, then any kind of animal could have been introduced, so if you want to use those animals, why have it take place in the wild? I agree that it's not necessary to be spot-on accurate for younger children because they're not discriminatory (bless 'em!) or exacting when it comes to stories (not for the most part anyway), but it's just as easy to get it right as it is to be misleading! For me, this matters.
The story is about a mom orangutan who wakes up to find her banana gone. She hikes through the forest asking one creature after another if they took her banana and at the end of the day, she returns to her tree nest to discover that her baby took it. This is a mom who abandoned her baby for the entire day in pursuit of one small banana, which isn't even the primary food of an orangutan!
To me this was the wrong approach to a story entirely, especially in a book which carries a banner extolling a mother's love, and goes right on to depict mom abandoning junior for selfish reasons. I think it could have been told in a much better way (and more accurately!), and I don't honestly feel I can support a book which could have been significantly better. For those reasons, I cannot recommend this book.
