Great tales for rainy days
When you’re an adult who dreads the heat of summer, a forecast of rain is usually met with enthusiasm because it comes with the promise of a cool-down, temperature-wise. But if you’re a kid who has been looking forward to beach activities, rain is a disappointment.
The Storm, by Akiko Miyakoshi (Kids Can Press, 32 pages, $18.95), captures that disappointment — and then some.
First published in Japan in 2009, this is the author/illustrator’s second book to be translated into English. Her first was The Tea Party in the Woods, published last year, about a little girl who follows her father to grandmother’s house, carrying the pie he forgot. It, too, was illustrated mostly in black and white, but with occasional accents of red and yellow.
In this latest translation, dramatic charcoal art in black and white tells the story of a young boy who has been promised a trip to the beach, only to find himself cooped up at home while his parents batten down the hatches in preparation for a massive storm. When it hits, at night, the howling wind makes the boy uneasy and by the time he climbs into bed, he pulls the blankets over his head to drown out the sound. In his dreams, he stands at the bow of a ship equipped with propellers big enough to drive the storm away and set sail into clear skies. Literally.
By morning, the sun has broken through and the boy opens his curtains to reveal a bright blue sky (the first bit of colour in the book) and a day that is perfect for going to the beach. Readers (and listeners) ages three to seven will share in his relief and excitement.
Rain is an integral part of another Kids Can publication: The Animals’ Ark, by Montreal author/illustrator Marianne Dubuc. First published last year in French, it tells the familiar Noah’s Ark story from the viewpoint of the animals who find their turf flooded and are rescued by an old man with a boat large enough to hold them all. (They board two by two, but don’t expect subsequent scenes to always show them in pairs.)
Life on board is not always peaceful. With the rain going on interminably, the animals start getting on each other’s nerves. “The penguins were overheating,” Dubuc tells us, “and the rabbits were seasick. / The rhinos took up too much room … / the hedgehogs were a thorn in others’ sides … / and the cat sharpened her claws in all the wrong places.”
Dubuc’s illustrations, in coloured pencil, are cute and bound to appeal to the target audience of three- to seven-yearolds. Scenes in which the mice and rabbits are sticking their tongues out at each other while bear and rhino glower at zebra and alligator are bound to resonate with the younger set.
And the delight and relief that greets word of “land, ho!” on the part of the cooped-up animals will speak volumes to any child who has been forced by a rainstorm to stay indoors when he or she would rather be outside.