Tuesday, January 26, 2021

The Tortoise's Gift: A Tale from Zambia retold by Lari Don and Melanie Williamson - ADVISABLE

The Tortoise's Gift: A Tale from Zambia
retold by Lari Don, illustrated by Melanie Williamson 48 pages. PICTURE BOOK, CHAPTER BOOK Barefoot Books, 2019. 9781782858416 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ADVISABLE 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE 

It's the dry season in Zambia, and old rabbit has heard about a special tree that will grow every kind of fruit. So the animals search and find a unique tree, but no fruit. They try lots of things (like shouting what they want and saying please) and finally decide they need to call the tree by its name. But the tree is so old, they need to find the oldest thing who might know. The mountain is the oldest, so they send the lion all the way to the mountain, who tells the name, but the lion is so proud of himself he forgets the name before he gets back. The elephant also forgets the name as do the monkeys. All the animals are distracted before they arrive. Except the tortoise.

Reminiscent of the Tortoise and the Hare, I enjoyed this fun story about persistence. Great illustrations, and funny, predictable situations make this a great story for a read aloud with a discussion afterwards. Illustrated in color throughout.

Lisa Librarian

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to Kiss the Book Jr.!

Welcome! Kiss the Book Jr. is for board books, picture books, early readers, and chapter books.  Also, any novels and non-fiction that we ag...