Reindeer People, The - Hardcover

Lewin, Ted

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027573907 ISBN 13: 9780027573909

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1994

Synopsis

Lush paintings and a detailed text provide an intriguing look at life among the reindeer herders of Lapland, detailing a reindeer roundup, a traditional Lapp wedding, family celebrations, and other aspects of life in the frigid Arctic world.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3-5?A picture book featuring the people of Lapland that highlights their dependence on reindeer for food, clothing, tools, income, entertainment, and the unusual juxatposition of traditional and modern ways of doing things. The first three vignettelike chapters follow Ola, a Sami herdsman, as he rides a sledge to camp and rounds up his herd of 400 reindeer. Lewin then describes an Arctic snow picnic, a sledge race, and a wedding. Although the text includes a wealth of sights, sounds, and description of the frigid landscape, the images are lacking in depth and detail, and the transitions between chapters are abrupt and confusing. The watercolor paintings, while pleasing to look at, often do not reflect the text, and are occasionally indistinct or vague. The page layout is attractive; the illustrations, with one exception, take up three quarters of each double page. The text, enclosed in a double-line border, sits in a vertically elongated rectangular box. However, the focus on adults and their activities makes this title of limited appeal to children. Piers Vitebsky's Saami of Lapland (Thomson Learning, 1994) is a better introduction to this vanishing way of life.?Roz Goodman, Bering Strait School District Media Center, Unalakleet, AK
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Dressed in gaily trimmed tunic and reindeer-skin boots with curving toes, Ola joins other Laplanders to follow the reindeer herds in their spring migration. Taking the reader with Ola, Lewin (Amazon Boy; When the Rivers Go Home) introduces the Sami people who live north of the Arctic Circle, a people whose centuries-old customs are surviving the modern world. Six vignettes portray a blue, frozen land teeming with activity: from the reindeer-drawn sledge ride ("a leaping, grunting, bucking, eye-bulging, tongue-lolling stampede") to the corral (where reindeer "wheel around like a school of fish") to the race (the Sami's "own special kind of madness") and finally, to the wedding (where the crowding friends "carry video cameras and wear reindeer clothes" and the couple "walks arm in arm out of the fairy tale into a waiting taxi and the twentieth century"). The author's highly descriptive prose is as luxurious as a reindeer coat, and his finely detailed, snapshot-style watercolors will engage readers of any age. Ages 6-9.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0027573907
• ISBN 13: 9780027573909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Lewin Ted