Word: haroun
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...books which reveal the vast differences within today's children's literature are Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie and Loving the Earth: A Sacred Landscape Book for Children written by Fredric Lehrman, with illustrations by Lisa Tune. The first is notable for the success Rushdie achives in a difficult area. The second book is remarkably bad; irritating and uninspired, Loving the Earth's only redeeming quality is its illustration...
...Haroun is the charming story of a young boy who lives in a land devoid of happiness, overrun by corrupt politicians and dirtied by smog. All the adults are serious and somber, and no one has enough "gift of gab" to tell stories except for Haroun's father. When the father loses this ability Haroun must help his father and several other adults regain their happiness. Among the various morals presented here: dishonest, power-hungry sad people are bad; national animosities are misfounded; and children should respect their elders...
Rushdie uses original, surprising and often quirky language to tell this story. And he does not present the moral in a heavy-handed manner. Haroun's only flaw is the shallowness of its characters, who while amusing have no developed personalities...
While there's nothing wrong with instilling morals in children, the message should be intelligent. Beware of preachiness; you may end up with a book like Loving the Earth when you could have acquired Haroun instead...
Next month Salman Rushdie's first book since The Satanic Verses will reach U.S. bookstores. The initial printing (125,000 copies) is large for a children's book, which is what Haroun and the Sea of Stories at first appears to be. But hold on. The tale seems eerily parallel to Rushdie's predicament. There is a storyteller named Rashid Khalifa, also known as the Shah of Blah, who loses the gift of the gab and can no longer entertain. What's worse, his condition is mysteriously linked to a fanatic cult that wants to wipe out not only made...