Amazon Boy - Hardcover

Lewin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027573834 ISBN 13: 9780027573831

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1993

Synopsis

Paulo, a young boy living in the Amazon rain forest, takes a trip with his father to the big city and learns all about how human beings have hurt the planet.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 1-4-- A boy and his father journey down the Amazon by steamboat to visit the city of Belem, a first visit for the boy. Lewin's impressionistic watercolors convey the lush river banks and surrounding foliage, and the crowded excitement of the city's harbor. The light-filled pictures, dense with detail, reinforce the theme that the riches of the rain forest must be protected. Unfortunately, the message is delivered in a didactic manner that verges on the sentimental, with a tear-filled lecture by the father and a remarkable sacrifice by the son. Yet the text gives little information about how to save the Amazon region from farming and mining. Readers are told that killing the largest fish is a terrible mistake, without learning why. They are shown folk medicines made from animals that need protecting, without a word about the conflict that surrounds this issue. Since children will respond to the pictures and the timely message, it is disappointing that the text is so thin and unsatisfying. --Kathleen Odean, Moses Brown School, Providence, RI
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The author of When the Rivers Go Home (1992) returns to Brazil for a look at the mouth of the Amazon, as seen by a boy whose father takes him from their jungle home to coastal Bel‚m as a birthday excursion. Paulo and his father travel downriver on a small steamer, see fishermen selling their catch in the city's harbor, and admire a huge filhote, a species endangered by overfishing. After wandering the market, they set out for home, the father commenting sadly on the thoughtless depredation of forest and river. Lewin rounds out his simple story with Paulo catching a valuable filhote and letting it go; but the most persuasive part of his nicely understated message is his art. The lovely, fluid, double-spread watercolors draw the reader right into the shadowed jungle, the river's blue-green reflections, the market's bustle. A book whose plea is especially effective because it simply states the facts--and shows the river's beauty. (Picture book. 5-9) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0027573834
• ISBN 13: 9780027573831
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32