12 June 2007
Guji Guji Listener review
Taiwanese writer/illustrator Chih-Yuan Chen's Guji-Guji is the latest outstanding picture book to be translated into English by New Zealand's Gecko Press. The very simple text - well-suited to a preschool audience, though slightly older children will enjoy this as well - sketches a predatory/prey variation on the ugly duckling story. A crocodile egg rolls into a duck's nest. ("Mother Duck didn't notice. She was reading.") Mother Duck raises her young reptile, Guji-Guji, kindly and well, but then three other crocodiles arrive in the lake, and try to convince him to back nature over nurture by leading his adopted family into a trap. The pictures are elegant and effective. |
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