Since reading Janell Cannon's Stellaluna,
I have been eager to find other books by this sensitive, lyrical
wordsmith and astonishingly talented artist. My last trip to the library
rewarded me with Crickwing and Little Yau: A Fuzzhead Tale.
The latter seems to be a departure for this woman so interested in
showing youngsters the ways of the natural world. Rather than depicting
real creatures in their natural environments, she invents a species.
This is actually the second of her books about Fuzzheads, which she
describes in her traditional end-of-the-book biological notes as being
six-foot-tall white felines, weighing 200 pounds, living for up to 200
years, existing primarily on fruits and vegetables but occasionally on
meat and being excessively fond of books. To that end, they are known to
visit bookstores and libraries disguised as humans, and they have
peacefully resided throughout the world for thousands of years,
undetected by their human neighbors.
Little Yau is a young
Fuzzhead who has just failed the test determining whether she is ready
to join the Wise Ones in the mountains to be trained as a healer. She's
feeling pretty depressed when she comes across her good friend Trupp,
who has been away. Finding Trupp poisoned, she frantically summons help.
Soon the community of Fuzzheads, including the three elders, has
gathered, and Little Yau learns that her friend will only recover with
the aid of a particular plant known as thumbfoot...
So begins
Little Yau's journey to find the plant and heal her friend. She is
joined by the elders initially, but after donning human garb they split
up, knowing that time is of the essence is Trupp is to be saved.
Visually, this book is much the same as the other Cannon books I've
read, with full-color, richly detailed illustrations filling one side of
the page and black-and-white line drawings augmenting the other.
The writing style is similar but slightly different, with more of a
fantasy feel to it. There's much discussion of mixing up herbs and
receiving the advice of wise elders, and the story reads not as a
morality tale but as a coming-of-age epic. I find the difference
intriguing, though in the end I'm not sure I'm quite as engrossed as I
was with the books that are more grounded in reality. Still, Cannon's
inventiveness is a plus, so while I don't think it's a particularly
educational book, it should stir the imaginations of children who are
cat lovers or have an inclination toward the fantastical.
The reading level seems just a bit more difficult than Crickwing and certainly more advanced than Stellaluna,
and it's a fairly lengthy book so I probably wouldn't recommend it for a
child much younger than second grade. But older kids should enjoy this
warm and exciting tale, and if they do, they'll be glad to know there's
another whole adventure they can turn to when it's over.
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