Posted January 7, 2014  & filed under Children's Book Reviews

The Boy and the Whale
Michael Moniz
978-1-927018-14-9
Simply Read Books
October 1, 2013
36 pp
Ages 3 – 7

The Boy and the Whale, by Toronto author and illustrator Michael Moriz, is a gentle story that celebrates acts of kindness.  Living on an island, a lonely boy finds solace in the ocean.  Nature is his companion as he spends his days fishing and dreaming.  While on the water one day, the young child spots an enormous whale entangled in a net.  He immediately comes to the creature’s aid, and with his small knife releases the whale from the trap.  Weeks later, the boy finds himself in peril when a fish he hooks pulls him from the rocks into the sea and strands him far from shore.  The same whale returns to help, and like an island growing out of the waters, lifts the boy to safety.  Their eyes meet in a touching moment of recognition.

Michael Moniz’s softly-hued watercoloured illustrations show the stark contrast between the small boy adrift alone among the elements and the powerful whale.  Small images of sea creatures, including a starfish, octopus and crab, accent the borders.

There is a pleasing fluidity and rhythm in the text.  Visually, the sentences also roll like waves across the page.  This eloquent, fable-like tale of friendship also lends itself very well to being shared aloud.

Linda Ludke is a librarian at London Public Library.  Her reviews have appeared in Quill and Quire, School Library Journal and CM:  Canadian Review of Materials.  When she’s not reading and writing she also loves searching for vintage treasures.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.