Thursday, May 27, 2021

The Mole and the Hole by Brayden Kowalczuk

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a weird story about a mole who would love to get above ground, but who is hampered from doing so by abundant rocks. Pretty much everything in this story has a face and a motivation, including the rocks, who seem to be conspiring to keep the mole down there with his pet bug. I found it amusing that the mole has a pet.

I also found the story a bit confusing and wondered from time to time if there's a meta story going on here, but in the end it seems to be just a tale of the mole finding a place to live that doesn't have so many rocks. There are no rocks underground in this world, just on the surface, and despite the book description, there seems to be no attempt here to tell any morality tale, so it seems we're supposed to figure that out for ourselves, I guess, or just enjoy the story. It was, as I said, a bit of a mess, but it was nicely illustrated by the author and amusingly told, so I commend this as a worthy read for children.