Title: Malaysian
Children's Favourite Stories
Author: Kay Lyons
Illustrator: Martin Loh
Publisher: Tuttle (Distributed by Periplus/Berkeley Books)
Where You Bought This Book: It’s a review copy.
What It’s All About:
To quote the jacket (and the blurb in Amazon.com): “Retold
for an international audience, the beautifully illustrated legends in this book
will give children in other countries an insight into both the traditional
culture and the environment of Malaysia. The country's rich tropical scenery
provides the perfect backdrop for these tales, many of which incorporate the
indigenous plant and animal life into their story lines.Though the book is
aimed at children in the five to twelve year age group, readers young and old
will find much to love within its pages.”
What I like About It:
It’s cool that someone is preserving Asian folktales.
What I Dislike About It:
1. No Malaysians were involved in the writing/illustrating
of this book. I wonder why. Surely there are Malaysian authors who would have
liked to contribute.
2. Loh’s artwork is really, really ugly. It’s the worst of all the books in this Favourite Stories series. How convenient to say that he specialises in “naive art”!
3. For every copy sold to bookstores in Malaysia, the publisher is giving ... RM1 (!!!!) to charity. I just think they can afford to give more (the retail price is RM45), but maybe that's naive of me.
If You Like The Sound of this Book, You Should Also Check
Out These Titles:
The other books in the series feature folktales from Japan,
China and Tibet, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore.
Name of Reviewer: Daphne Lee
is there a story of Puteri Santubong in that book? if there is, could you in any way tell me about it..i really need to know. ASAP.
(^_^)
Posted by: Ai-Ra | Friday, September 21, 2007 at 16:32