Praise for Elephant in the Dark :
"An amusing retelling." -- Booklist
"The book should provide opportunities for rich discussions about perception and about advocating for what you believe to be true." -- Horn Book
Praise for The Secret Message by Mina Javaherbin (illustrated by Bruce Whatley) :
"This handsome picture book's intriguing title will grab children, and they won't be disappointed with the twists in both story and message...Both the richly detailed scenes and story reversals will draw a young audience." -- Booklist
"After the first suspenseful reading, children should clamor for repeats." -- Publishers Weekly
Praise for Goal! by Mina Javaherbin (illustrated by A.G. Ford) :
"This heart-tugging picture book from a debut author tells a lyrical soccer story in the voice of a young boy in a South African shantytown." -- Booklist
Praise for Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin :
A Newbery Honor Book
• "This brief novel gets at the heart of a society that asks its citizens, even its children, to report on relatives and friends. Appropriately menacing illustrations by first-time novelist Yelchin add a sinister tone." --The Horn Book, starred review
"Yelchin's graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha's steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Yelchin skillfully combines narrative with dramatic black-and-white illustrations to tell the story of life in the Soviet Union under Stalin." --School Library Journal
2015-06-06
An Iranian-American author recasts an anecdote from the Persian poet Rumi, itself based on a far older tale about perceiving parts of a truth rather than its whole. Javaherbin adds characters and plot to the bare-bones original and reduces Rumi's lengthy mystical exegesis to a line. So curious are local villagers about the strange beast Ahmad the merchant has brought from India that they sneak into the dark barn where the creature is kept. Each returns with a different impression: one trips over the animal's nose and announces that it's like a snake, but it is more like a tree to one who feels its leg, and so on. Their squabble is so intense that they don't even notice when Ahmad arrives to lead the elephant out to the river—leaving each with "only a small piece of the truth." Yelchin outfits the villagers in curly-toed slippers and loose, brightly patterned caftans. He also puts a nifty spin on the story by leaving the adults to argue obliviously but surrounding the elephant at the wordless end with smiling, plainly clearer-eyed children. Though the language is bland, the wildly gesticulating figures in the illustrations add a theatrical element, and the episode makes its points in a forthright way. An excellent source note traces the familiar tale back to its earliest versions. Less stylish than Ed Young's classic Seven Blind Mice but a serviceable rendition nonetheless. (Picture book/folk tale. 6-8)
