Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

This adaptation of Lafcadio Hearn's "A Living God" features "a wise old rice farmer who lived near the sea." Known as Ojiisan, "grandfather," he's respected by his fellow villagers, who come to seek his counsel at his mountaintop cottage. When it's time to celebrate the autumn harvest down in the village, Ojiisan and his grandson, Tada, stay behind. A mild earthquake precedes a massive ebb in the tide, and Ojiisan, recalling his own grandfather's wisdom, realizes that such events herald a tsunami, and that he and Tada must find a way to warn the people below. The story could be a little more tightly told (Ojiisan's grandfather-imparted advice turns up rather abruptly), but it has both immediacy and folkloric resonance. There's considerable drama in the mountaintop warning—Ojiisan and his grandson set fire to the ricefields that provide the old man with his livelihood in order to draw the villagers to the mountain to help douse the fire—and it's high action from that moment until the satisfying ending. Collage dominates Young's illustrations, with occasional touches of paint enhancing the already varied textures ranging from sharp-edged photographs to soft, fibrous rag. The intensity of the patterning [End Page 205] moves the art into near-abstraction at times, held together by strongly rhythmic composition, that makes the art likely to appeal most to visually sophisticated viewers. This could work as an interesting pairing with accounts of the 2004 tsunami such as Kroll's Selvakumar Knew Better (BCCB 9/06) or other retellings of the tale such as Hodges' The Wave, illustrated by Blair Lent (BCCB 9/64), or just as an eventful tale of disaster and heroism in its own right. The copyright page includes a source note.