Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: character

  • If I Were a Lion

    If I Were a Lion

    Being brave and fierce and wild and free sounds a lot like a lion to me. The character in this Children’s picture book, If I Were A Lion wants to be all of these things. As well, she wants to say, “No smooches until I am ready.”  The young one wants to have many voices, loud and soft, happy, and sad. She would always be brave, except when she was being careful. Being a lion would mean that you could eat cake any way you wanted.

    Then the girl thinks, maybe she is a lion because she already has so many choices, and she can shine. The pathways open to lions and little girls are very similar. Both hunt with their pack, both can fight for dominance (although girls have less claws), both can relax when their bodies are tired, and both can roll around in the mud.

    Kitty Black and Giuseppe Poli have shown many children in various situations. The inclusion of handicapped children is clever, in showing they can also be fierce. The artwork consists of outlines and sketches suggesting movement and action. The humour adds an extra dimension to the story. “If I were a lion I would not eat like a lady.”

    The ending is highly appropriate suggesting it’s alright to be a lion but it’s also good to be ME.

  • The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I

    The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I

     It would be easy to assume from the beginning of this story that it was a simple teenage romance. The reader meets Virginia, age 16, who lives in New York with her parents. She is the youngest child in the family. Dad is a business man, Mum is a psychologist; Virginia has an older sister who is working in a refugee camp overseas. Gin also has an older brother who has been sent down from college for an “Ordeal.”

    Virginia’s parents are very disciplined in their fitness and diet routines, and despair of her large size and lack of motivation. Gin however, sees herself as “Curvaceous,” and is resistant to their constant efforts to improve her. During the stressful time of end of year exams, Gin finds that the boy she thought of as her first boyfriend, is not as special as she had hoped and she has fallen “Out of like with him.”

    It is during this time that she finds out that the reason her brother has been sent home is because he has been accused of date rape. After a period of time, the police come to take him away. At a young age this can only mean he will possibly go to jail and be put on a sex offenders register. He was to have studied law.  Horrified for her brother, Virginia meets the girl who has made the accusation. Equally horrified, she discovers the young girl has had her life changed forever, and although she is trying not to be a victim, the abused girl can’t move away from the dreadful action.

    This is almost a novel of awakening from a teenager to adulthood, as Virginia sees her parents prepared to do anything to protect their son. Her older sister comes back at this time and breaks the news that she has a partner. Another woman.  Again, the family is rocked, they are furious, and see it as a phase, like her vegetarian phase. It is now clear that the family code is one of secrecy… no one in their family does anything other than the “right thing.”  To complicate matters Virginia meets a lovely young man but then discovers he is related to her brother’s victim.

    Getting her thoughts straight and realizing that her parents are not infallible, is a tough job for a sixteen-year-old. The way Virginia rationalizes her thoughts and feelings is interesting to follow and bit by bit we see an independent young woman of strength and character emerge. The process and development are engaging.