The Rebellious Alphabet (Edge Graphics)

Despite a dictator's ban on all reading and writing, an old man trains birds to print his messages and floods the town with poems and leaflets, in a political fable touched with magic and humor and complemented by unusual illustrations.

Grade 5 Up-Reminiscent of The Bomb and the General (Harcourt, 1989) by Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi, this unusual picture book tells of a small, illiterate general who rules over a large village. He controls the minds of his people by banning reading, writing, and printing. But an elderly man, Placido, puts letters and punctuation marks on the feet of his seven canaries and has them jump on an ink-filled sponge and then on pieces of paper to form the words of his poems and leaflets. When the soldiers find the source of these outlawed papers, they jail the man and his birds and burn the letters. The ink from them forms a black cloud that rains down words on the villagers and black prisoner's stripes on the general. With their ruler a prisoner of his own ignorance, the people are free to read. There is much to keep older readers interested in Jorfald's whimsical, cartoon illustrations. The military men are depicted in grays and blacks, with hats, a twisting pipeline from the general's mouth to the town crier, and other accoutrements that poke fun at their ridiculous position. In contrast, the villagers are rendered in bright colors. Placido's writings appear in many languages, attesting to the universality of the message. However, the text is didactic and contains the gratuitous generalization that "...people who are free love nature." The translation is stiff. In addition, the deus ex machina solution is simplistic. Would that illiteracy and repression were so easily eradicated! Still this fable, soon to become a film, may spark discussion in a unit on censorship.
Marianne Saccardi, Whitby School American Montessori Center, Greenwich, CT
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Diaz, a Chilean exile who now lives in Spain, takes on the subject of censorship in this universal parable of freedom. Here, an illiterate dictator known as the Little General bans reading, writing and printing in his village. He doesn't suspect that a man named Placido ("peaceful") will foil his plans to keep the people in ignorance. Placido owns seven canaries which wear letters of the alphabet on their feet; he dictates his ideas to the birds, which hop from inkpad to paper until a leaflet or poem is complete. Placido's messages of "liberty" contrast with images of the Little General and his troops burning books and protest letters. Norwegian illustrator Jorfald combines collage and a cartoon technique similar to--though not as disturbing as--the work of German satirist George Grosz. He renders scenes of oppression in drab grays, reserving a more variegated palette for spreads supporting nonviolent revolution. While he and Diaz paint a simplistic, soft-hitting portrait of fascism--especially considering the target audience--the book's symbolic content will challenge young Americans. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

By a Chilean-born author (a political exile now living in Spain) and a Norwegian artist and film-maker, a fable concerning totalitarianism. The ``Little General'' rules through a town crier who falsely proclaims that violence holds sway outside the village while peace prevails within it, and by his own tantrums, when he spouts pure nonsense (``Rodisflankis!! Conical gransifolopods!!''). Himself illiterate, he's banned reading--and printing. Still, old Pl cido, in his basement full of books, has some unusual canaries: with letters attached to their toes, they print leaflets on liberty. Pl cido is discovered and jailed, but is allowed to keep his canaries, their secret intact. Meanwhile, soldiers sweep up all printed matter and burn it, to no avail: the general's ignorance is now common knowledge, while even the clouds rain down ink that forms itself into new letters--and stripes on the general, making him a laughingstock. Jorvald's illustrations, with their police-state images, cozy, pleasant- looking villagers (especially the patient printer and his books), collages of newsprint in several languages, and ubiquitous letters are handsomely designed and integral to the contrast here between ignorance/brutality/barrenness and knowledge/kindness/nurturing. Less dogged and simplistic than most such fables, with a welcome light touch and enough logical ambiguities to give older children plenty to ponder and discuss. (Picture book. 10+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.