Items related to The Wonder Thing
Synopsis
What is "the wonder thing"? This book is a mystery in simple verse and illustrations that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. It is a celebration of water. Libby Hathorn won the Children's Book Council's Book of the Year Award for "The Tram to Bondi Beach".
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From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4?A concept book with distinctive pictures, an important message, and an artful style. The brief, poetic text is really an extended riddle, giving clues to what the book is all about: "High above the peaks/On the wild mountaintop/Deep underground/In the swirling mist/Under the melting snow..." On the last page, readers learn that The Wonder Thing is water. Throughout, the sense of interconnectedness is pervasive, and the perspective is truly a global one. The action moves from New York to Hong Kong to a small Middle Eastern village; from a city dump in an urban wasteland to a tropical paradise. Each line is accompanied by a full-page picture. All environments, people, and creatures are bound together by their need for water, and in Gouldthorpe's dense, richly textured pictures, the beauty and variety of life are constants. He uses deep colors, thick lines, and heavy black borders that can't contain the action and lushness. This Australian import is a winner?it's a learning experience and a sheer delight.
Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Publishers Weekly
A prose poem with a riddle at its core makes up this picture book about an essential of life. What is the "wonder thing" that reappears on each page? Evocative phrases and half-sentences lead the reader from picture to picture in a round-the-world search for the answer, dropping hints along the way. Hathorn (Way Home) describes the myriad qualities of the "wonder thing": "Good as gold,... Precious as air,... Powerful as rock,... Gentle as kisses." What could it be? Water, of course. After learning the solution, readers will be fascinated by repeat tours of Gouldthorpe's (When I Turned Six) detailed, vibrantly colored linoleum-block print illustrations, scrutinizing each cityscape or rural idyll for the presence of water in one form or another. A book sure to encourage children to think about the world around them. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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