This one is hard to give a rating to. I feel kind of bad about it, but honestly I don’t think it would be honest of it me to give it a 3. It’s very sweet and I really like the sketchy drawings, but it’s also- insubstantial. There’s no storyline- which is okay- but there’s not much to replace it. If you still want to be surprised by reading this the first time yourself, go no further- SPOILERS- because otherwise I will have nothing to talk about.
A boy taking a walk encounters a mole he befriends. The mole likes cake and often comments on this. Simple pleasures (reminding me of Winnie the Pooh). They discuss friendship, love, forgiveness and other things. Gently encouraging each other. They come across a fox in a snare, who would eat the mole if he could, but the mole chews him free. They walk on together. At a body of water the mole falls in, the fox rescues him. They meet a horse. Talk more about companionship, what it means to be brave, unconditional love, etc. They walk into a forest and out again. Face a storm and come through it. And that’s it. It’s mostly heart-warming and uplifting sayings, alongside the drawings. My favorite lines:
“the biggest waste of time [is] comparing yourself to others.”
“One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things.”
“Most of the old moles I know wish they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.”
“Sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent.”
It all reminds me very much of The Little Prince, but I liked that a whole lot better. (Even though I kind of disparaged it when I wrote about it here years ago).
Oh, and the text is all in a scrawly inked handwriting. Which is lovely in its own way, and my eyes got used to reading it, but I can understand that many readers would have a difficult time with it.
Borrowed from the public library. I read it in one sitting, in a library chair.
4 Responses
I love the art on the cover! I always enjoy seeing how drawings are made, with the circles for their main shapes. At least the story part was a fast read? I guess maybe it would be good for young readers, so they could learn those lessons early.
Yes, the artwork was all lovely! I’m not sure this book would work for kids? I remember how bored and frustrated my own were with The Little Prince- without a lot of storyline, it can be hard to follow. But maybe.
I just finished a book that had whole sections written in cursive rather than a normal typeface, and it made me wonder about the generation or two that were not exposed to cursive in school, so never learned to read or write it. I wondered if they can even read those pages without a tremendous amount of effort and some guesswork.
Yes, exactly. It was a bit hard for me to read the first few pages- especially the forward which was all in this handwriting- in fact I think I saw some reviewers on Amzn who couldn’t get past difficulties with the text.