This is a very beautiful book (with its own website and accompanying CD soundtrack - click on the cover).
I read this at the same time as the Madeleine L'Engle book and the SARK book.
The illustrator and creator, Terryl Whitlach, spent eight years at Lucasfilm and was the principal creature designer for Star Wars: Episode One.
The story (by David Michael Wieger) is about a lemur named Katook who is exiled from his home and undertakes a long journey to find his way back.
Whitlach really has a magical way of portraying animals so that it certainly does not seem odd that they are talking to each other or doing things like selling figs in a marketplace.
Dave and I saw this book several times at our local Tower Books last fall, and every time I would stop, touch it, and read a bit of it. But each time it seemed like too big of a purchase for people who already have a whole ton of books and entertainments.
But last week it was 20% off and I could not resist!
Two of my favorite double-page spreads are on 40 and 41 (day) and 42 and 43 (night) which show Katook riding on the back of a sea-turtle, accompanied by a host of what looks like every possible sea creature that exists.
Katook also meets two very memorable characters at a market that seems as diverse as the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars. I laughed out loud in the bookstore when I read this:
Katook turned to see a bristly-maned, spindly-legged cud-chewer standing next to him. And sitting on its back was a plump, squinty-eyed spiny anteater, who chimed in, "Quite hungry indeed. A shame for one so athletic as you appear to be." The anteater bowed slightly and continued, "Fleng I am and Plod is he. Horned and prickly, we two be. I am an anteater. Plod is a gnu. And you?"
Katook also meets a quagga named Quigga later on in the story - I was very entertained by the variety - lemurs, gnus, and quaggas instead of the normal bears, lions, and other animals that usually populate more traditional "picture books."
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