The Water Shell - Hardcover

Schields, Gretchen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152004041 ISBN 13: 9780152004040

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995

Synopsis

When the soldiers of the evil Fire Queen steal the Water Shell that protects Kua-i-Helani from the queen's wrath, the queen creates a flaming volcano that covers the island with lava, and a lone surviving child must restore the island's beauty.

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Grade 3-5?In this original story based on Polynesian mythology, a young girl makes an epic quest for the Water Shell, the magical egg that sustains her world and that has been stolen by a vengeful goddess. Keiki is aided by the Great Shark of the Sea, a philosophizing spider, the mischievous Wind Children, and other fantastic beings as she journeys toward the realm of the fearsome Fire Queen and recovers the stolen object. Unfortunately, the story is overly long, and the rather fragmented references to mythological wonders fail to be coherent and child-accessible. Although Schields's illustrative style may not equal the energy and playfulness of her earlier works, it retains the love of color and movement that are her trademarks. The entire work, though, seems like a Hawaiian Wizard of Oz?puzzling, anecdotal, and overstuffed with characters so powerfully compelling that they deserve chapters all their own.?Jennifer Fleming, Boston Public Library
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This plodding first solo effort by Schields, illustrator of Amy Tan's The Moon Lady (see Picture Book Reprints, p. 63), is set on the mythical island of Kua-i-Helani, a "changeless paradise" protected by the Water Shell, a magic egg. Incorporating South Pacific legend and folklore, the narrative wordily and melodramatically recounts how the evil Fire Queen steals the egg, and how a girl named Keiki retrieves it and thereby saves the island. Keiki's rambling quest advances with the help of some curious individuals (including two "fabulously tattooed" Wind Children) but is considerably slowed down by Schields's tendency to overwrite: Keiki "tore the magic egg from the flaming breast of the Fire Queen and pulled it to her"; after it is returned, the egg opens and water rises from it "into a misty rainbow in the sky, forming great clouds that rained down on the land in fertile showers." Every bit as theatrical as the text, Schields's highly charged watercolors feature electric hues and some apocalyptic images that are potentially disturbing. Even the all's-well ending, which finds Keiki a young woman in a "pulsing world of hope and choice," does little to solidify this overblown tale. Ages 6-10.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152004041
• ISBN 13: 9780152004040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40