hopeevey's review
5.0
I love this book! It's a treat for both the mind and the spirit. It follows the journey of Katook, a young lemur. Katook's journey is both internal and external. Yes, it is a picture book, but it's not just a children's book. I plan to come back to it again and again.
abomine's review
4.0
Perfect Musical Pairing: Great Spirits by Phil Collins (from Disney's Brother Bear)
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Like most things that I read and enjoyed as a kid and return to again many years later, this wasn't quite as good as I remember. The story, which I thought so epic and inspiring as a wide-eyed youth, seems a bit simplistic and hampered by plot holes now that I'm reading this as an adult. Still, it's a fairly solid retelling of a set of tried-and-true fantasy tropes that certainly appeal to the child in all of us.
The illustrations, though, are what REALLY sell this book. Rich and colorful, with a marvelous attention to detail, and with more substantial world-building than the actual story itself. I deeply wish that The Katurran Odyssey ended up being a series (as I assume it was originally planned) because I want to keep on exploring this magnificent world. It's not often that I want to actually live in the books I'm reading, but I definitely wanted to live in this one.
In short, three stars for the fairly decent story, five stars for the illustrations, averaging out to four stars for the book as a whole. If you're looking for a unique picture book that both you and your child will enjoy, this will make for some pretty epic bedtime reading.
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Like most things that I read and enjoyed as a kid and return to again many years later, this wasn't quite as good as I remember. The story, which I thought so epic and inspiring as a wide-eyed youth, seems a bit simplistic and hampered by plot holes now that I'm reading this as an adult. Still, it's a fairly solid retelling of a set of tried-and-true fantasy tropes that certainly appeal to the child in all of us.
The illustrations, though, are what REALLY sell this book. Rich and colorful, with a marvelous attention to detail, and with more substantial world-building than the actual story itself. I deeply wish that The Katurran Odyssey ended up being a series (as I assume it was originally planned) because I want to keep on exploring this magnificent world. It's not often that I want to actually live in the books I'm reading, but I definitely wanted to live in this one.
In short, three stars for the fairly decent story, five stars for the illustrations, averaging out to four stars for the book as a whole. If you're looking for a unique picture book that both you and your child will enjoy, this will make for some pretty epic bedtime reading.
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