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A review by cacia
The Green Umbrella by Jackie Azúa Kramer, Maral Sassouni
1.0
I wanted to like this story, but it was poorly written. The author tried for a poetic voice, but she kept making rookie mistakes. The dialogue was stiff and unnatural, and although I kept trying to give it grace because she seemed to be going for a whimsical, poetic vibe, the effect was neither: it was heavy-handed at best and illogical at worst.
The verbs she chose for dialogue tags are the sort that you see in Pinterest lists of "Don't use 'said,' use __!", and although strong and varied verbs can be a good thing, they distract and jar when they are used in contexts in which they don't fit. (She also wrote "'That would be nice,' smiled the old Rabbit," and if you can't see what's wrong with that, then please never recommend a book to me.) Not only did she err in phrasings ("wooded forests," anyone?), but she clearly is unfamiliar with rudimentary punctuation: several commas and a hyphen were missing. Also, the kerning was off, which contributed to the less-than-pleasant reading experience.
If the story had been decent, I could have put up with the other annoyances, but the story doesn't even make sense. Imagining all the different things one can do with an umbrella? Good. But there is no resolution for why the animals are mistaking the umbrella for their own. Do they all have green umbrellas? Did the elephant only recently acquire the umbrella and each of the other creatures had it in turn before him? Do the animals just go about claiming other people's property as their own? There is no explanation, and the author doesn't seem to think there needs to be even a hint of one.
The elephant shares his umbrella. That's good too. But the conclusion of the animals all becoming friends is forced; just a few pages earlier they were upset because the elephant was walking off with the umbrella. Just because he offers to share it with somebody else, now they're volunteering to make tea and sit around and talk? Why was there no sign of camaraderie earlier in the story? And if the whole point of the story is that the umbrella is bringing them together (as the final spread implies), then why not substantiate the umbrella's role in the story by explaining how they each happened to have the umbrella to use? Why not have it pass from hand to hand, adventure to adventure, shared willingly, rather than having all of the animals jealously clamoring to have it back? And if it can't be shared willingly, then why not show it being pulled away from each animal by chance—the hedgehog losing his 'boat' to a current, which washes a 'tent' up to the cat, who then loses it to a wind that sweeps it off to the bear, who thinks it makes the perfect sail for his flying machine? That would be easy to explain, and it wouldn't even have to be in text: it'd be easy to illustrate it as a silent running thread through the story, linking the individual narratives.
There are really so many ways that this story could have been made into a compelling, coherent, imaginative tale, but as it is it's barely even mediocre. There are oodles of truly fantastic picture books out there; don't waste your time on this one.
If you're looking for a story about imaginative play, try "[b:Little Bear's Trousers|1049117|Little Bear's Trousers|Jane Hissey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1180505726l/1049117._SX50_.jpg|1035563]," "[b:Maggie and Wendel: Imagine Everything!|25785701|Maggie and Wendel Imagine Everything!|Cori Doerrfeld|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458692587l/25785701._SX50_.jpg|45636402]," "[b:Not a Stick|2079076|Not a Stick|Antoinette Portis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347930466l/2079076._SX50_.jpg|2084348]," and "[b:What To Do With a Box|25862144|What To Do With a Box|Jane Yolen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1455485094l/25862144._SX50_.jpg|45732780]."
The verbs she chose for dialogue tags are the sort that you see in Pinterest lists of "Don't use 'said,' use __!", and although strong and varied verbs can be a good thing, they distract and jar when they are used in contexts in which they don't fit. (She also wrote "'That would be nice,' smiled the old Rabbit," and if you can't see what's wrong with that, then please never recommend a book to me.) Not only did she err in phrasings ("wooded forests," anyone?), but she clearly is unfamiliar with rudimentary punctuation: several commas and a hyphen were missing. Also, the kerning was off, which contributed to the less-than-pleasant reading experience.
If the story had been decent, I could have put up with the other annoyances, but the story doesn't even make sense. Imagining all the different things one can do with an umbrella? Good. But there is no resolution for why the animals are mistaking the umbrella for their own. Do they all have green umbrellas? Did the elephant only recently acquire the umbrella and each of the other creatures had it in turn before him? Do the animals just go about claiming other people's property as their own? There is no explanation, and the author doesn't seem to think there needs to be even a hint of one.
The elephant shares his umbrella. That's good too. But the conclusion of the animals all becoming friends is forced; just a few pages earlier they were upset because the elephant was walking off with the umbrella. Just because he offers to share it with somebody else, now they're volunteering to make tea and sit around and talk? Why was there no sign of camaraderie earlier in the story? And if the whole point of the story is that the umbrella is bringing them together (as the final spread implies), then why not substantiate the umbrella's role in the story by explaining how they each happened to have the umbrella to use? Why not have it pass from hand to hand, adventure to adventure, shared willingly, rather than having all of the animals jealously clamoring to have it back? And if it can't be shared willingly, then why not show it being pulled away from each animal by chance—the hedgehog losing his 'boat' to a current, which washes a 'tent' up to the cat, who then loses it to a wind that sweeps it off to the bear, who thinks it makes the perfect sail for his flying machine? That would be easy to explain, and it wouldn't even have to be in text: it'd be easy to illustrate it as a silent running thread through the story, linking the individual narratives.
There are really so many ways that this story could have been made into a compelling, coherent, imaginative tale, but as it is it's barely even mediocre. There are oodles of truly fantastic picture books out there; don't waste your time on this one.
If you're looking for a story about imaginative play, try "[b:Little Bear's Trousers|1049117|Little Bear's Trousers|Jane Hissey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1180505726l/1049117._SX50_.jpg|1035563]," "[b:Maggie and Wendel: Imagine Everything!|25785701|Maggie and Wendel Imagine Everything!|Cori Doerrfeld|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458692587l/25785701._SX50_.jpg|45636402]," "[b:Not a Stick|2079076|Not a Stick|Antoinette Portis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347930466l/2079076._SX50_.jpg|2084348]," and "[b:What To Do With a Box|25862144|What To Do With a Box|Jane Yolen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1455485094l/25862144._SX50_.jpg|45732780]."