Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Giant Leaf: take a giant leaf of faith by Davy Liu--Book Review


Davy Liu has come up with a beautiful and fascinating retelling of a Biblical story using an animal's perspective with his children's picture book, The Giant Leaf: take a giant leaf of faith from his Invisible Tails series.

In this story that tells of The Great Flood, Kendu the fox dreams of floating in an endless blue beneath a giant leaf. But his days are long and hard as the foxes are forced to dig holes for the Beasts to lay their eggs.

Then one day, Kendu escapes and decides he must find the giant leaf from him dream. Meeting up with Yitzhak the monkey and a koala bear named Odelia, the three decide to go to the Wilds, even though they are afraid of the Animal Eater. When the rains come, they realize that their only chance of survival is the dreaded Animal Eater. But maybe the Animal Eater is not what it appears to be.

Just as with Liu's book Fire Fish--which I reviewed here--The Giant Leaf is filled with symbolism and entertaining animal characters to delight young readers. Douglas Wood offered the illustrations in this book and they are just as stunning as the ones Liu provided for Fire Fish. The characters, the glossy pages, and the beautiful illustrations will make The Giant Leaf a book that your child will treasure for many years to come and the book's unusual size (12 X 6 1/2 inches) will ensure you'll easily be able to find it on the bookshelf--though it will never be there long because you'll want to read it often.

I eagerly await more books in the Invisible Tails series.


Title: The Giant Leaf: take a giant leaf of faith
Author: Davy Liu
Publisher: Kendu Films Productions
ISBN-13: 978-1-57921-864-5
ISBN-10: 1-57921-864-4
U.S. Price: $19.95

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