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Title: The Fortune-Tellers by Lloyd Alexander, Trina Schart Hyman ISBN: 0-14-056233-8 Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A New Look at The Fortune-Tellers
Comment: Okay, I think some points should be made about this book and they are not all positive. Although the book may be delightful to read with the vivid illustrations and the cute story, there are some major stereotypical problems to be discussed. I have been writing book evaluations for my Children's Literature class at Keystone College and found flaws in this book. For instance, the people of Cameroom, Africa are portrayed to be a gullible people. When the real fortune-teller is telling the carpenter his fortune, he says that wealth, true love, and fame will come to pass, provided that they occur. Then, after the fortune-teller's disappearence, the carpenter tells everybody else in town the same fortune. Hello, don't they compare their stories? Don't they realize that not everybody can be wealthly and have a long-life. Also, none of the characters are given names, where is their individual identity. However, I like the illustrations in the book, they are so luscious and filled with great detail. Fortunately, not all of the Africans are portrayed in the same way, they are have different body types and are all of various ages. Overall, The Fortune-Tellers is an okay book, but I wouldn't recommend that it be read in schools, for it may give children the wrong ideas about multicultural characters and places.
Rating: 5
Summary: A fortunate pairing
Comment: I don't know how author Lloyd Alexander and illustrator Trina Schart Hyman found one another for this book. Perhaps Mars was rising in the Pisces and all the stars were in correct alignment when it happened. Perhaps it was predicted by a seer decades before it could actually occur. Or maybe it was just one of those strokes of luck that produce books of pure perfection without ever meaning to. Whatever the reason, in the end their collaborative "The Fortune Tellers" is what you would expect of two geniuses. It is perfect.
The story concerns a young man who wishes to seek his fortune and escape the drudgery of carpentry. After visiting a fortune teller the young man is convinced he will someday attain wealth, love, and long life. But on returning to the fortune teller's lair later, he finds the old man gone and people mistaking HIM for a fortune teller. In the end, he gains everything he ever wanted by telling people a caveat-laden series of predictions.
The story is nice and funny. It's told well and children will get the key to the fortunes easily on their own. But honestly, this book could have been made or broken by its illustrator. In the wrong hands it could easily have gone beyond poorly drawn into offensive. Therefore, we should all give a great big sigh of relief that it was instead placed in the capable and multi-talent hands of Ms. Hyman.
Basing her pictures in Cameroon (a land where her son-in-law was originally from), Hyman has produced a plethora of drop-dead gorgeous drawings. Says Hyman in her bio about this creation, the book is illustrated with her, "memories of the incredible beauty, strength, and diversity of the landscape and people of Cameroon". Certainly the landscapes are lovely. From fields of grassland, mountain ranges, and wooded boulevards it stuns. But I was most taken with the people in this book. Honestly, I don't know how Hyman did it. Every single woman in this book is wearing several different printed cloths. Every man is different from every other. Every baby completely easy to distinguish from every other. If you want to be blown away, you don't even have to open the darned book. Just turn it over and look at the group of ten people standing on the back cover. From the coy baby to the pair of brothers to the girls that regard the viewer with matter-of-fact eye contact, I was just stunned. And I haven't even begun to tell you about the millions of tiny details in EVERY single picture. There are hundreds of things to discover. For example, the old fortune teller owns a French to English dictionary propped up in his bed. Small lizards are identifiable in almost every picture if you care to seek them out. Observe also the interactions between friends and neighbors. Amazing.
My words are inadequate. This book deserves every drop of attention you have to spare. Kids will love it. Adults will feast their eyes on every scene. It is the most beautiful of Hyman's creations, and truly an effective labor of love. I adore this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Delightful and engaging!
Comment: From the very first page and the very first (of many) readings this beautifully illustrated story had my granddaughter and I laughing, pointing, and noticing all sorts of details in both the story and illustrations. We admired the beautiful clothing worn by the women and children. We imagined how wonderful it would be to visit such a place, and we found a fortune telling ball at a local novelty store to play with. This humorously told, universally appealing story shows us how we tend to look outside ourselves for the good fortunes we really have to create from within, with our own imagination and hard work.
We've travelled 40 miles to the city library several times over the last few years to check this book out. The last time, we had to wait for it to get back from the binders for repairs, and I realized I'd better find my own copy, because it could disappear, and it has become one of my personal "classics" for sharing with children. So I am ordering two; one for ourselves, and one for our little library here in town. (My granddaughter is seven years old now, and delights in reading the Fortune Teller herself, and will no doubt be reading it to her baby sister when she is old enough!) We highly recommend it!
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Title: Sense Pass King: A Story from Cameroon by Katrin Tchana, Trina Schart Hyman ISBN: 0823415775 Publisher: Holiday House Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Judge : An Untrue Tale by Margot Zemach, Harve Zemach ISBN: 0374439621 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 01 April, 1988 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Swamp Angel (Caldecott Honor Book) by Anne Isaacs, Paul O. Zelinsky ISBN: 0525452710 Publisher: Dutton Books Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: Ben's Trumpet by Rachel Isadora ISBN: 0688801943 Publisher: Greenwillow Pub. Date: 01 February, 1979 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
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Title: It Could Always Be Worse : A Yiddish Folk Tale by Margot Zemach ISBN: 0374436363 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 01 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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