Mysterious Traveler

Gr 2–5—Peet and Graham team up again for an original folktale, this one inspired by the guides who navigate the Sahara in Mali. The authors spin a sweet and predictable story about a baby wearing a valuable necklace who is rescued from a sandy death by a kindhearted old man named Issa. He raises the infant as his granddaughter, relying more and more on young Mariama once his eyesight begins to fail. The text grows increasingly fantastical as Issa's blindness forces Mariama to verbalize the visual wonder of the vast landscape they traverse for a living. Lynch's rich mixed-media illustrations-in shades of velvety browns and tans punctuated by blues-capture the desert's expansive quality. Their beauty evokes Issa's love for the land, but does not entirely convey the menacing nature of the mercurial terrain, an essential tenet of the story. After a trio of arrogant visitors rejects Issa's guidance, he and Mariama rescue them just as a potentially deadly sandstorm swirls up. No one but the characters will feel surprise when the chastened young leader of the group notices Mariama's pendant and discovers her to be his long-lost sister and a princess. Some of the descriptions (e.g., "big-bellied baobab trees lifted their thick branches and fingery leaves like a line of stout old gentlemen waving their arms in the air") offer fresh whimsy to the folktale form. These lyrical sparks and Lynch's illustrations, most notably a desert mountain scene awash in luminous blues, elevate this effort.—Robbin E. Friedman, Chappaqua Library, NY