Eco, el hada de la naturaleza

K-Gr 3—Translated into Spanish from Slovenian, this allegorical tale follows the crusade of Eco the water/nature fairy, Daimoon the dragon, and a human boy named Bell as they join forces to battle the evil lake creature, Wardoo. When Wardoo falls in love with Eco, he strives to be worthy of her—until he notices that Bell has monopolized her attention. In a jealous rage, he undermines the dikes protecting Bell's village. Daimoon flies to the rescue and buries Wardoo forever under a landslide of boulders. Enova's needlessly ponderous and overly ambitious fairy tale introduces a hodgepodge of narrative threads that have nothing to do with the story's principal message: to love and protect nature and all its gifts. The assertion that people must be taught to respect their environment comes across as ineffectual and redundant because Bell and his people were already living in harmony prior to Eco's extraterrestrial appearance. The concept that hate and jealousy destroy from within and without is connected only loosely to the message of environmental responsibility. The murky resolution is made tolerable by Lubi's pastel illustrations, which complement Enova's simplistic tale. The wide-eyed, cherubic characters are evocative of Precious Moments figurines.