Peach Girl

K-Gr 2—An adaptation of the traditional Japanese folktale "Momotaro: The-Boy of-the-Peach," the story of a boy who emerges from a peach, is raised by an elderly couple, and grows up to defeat ogres. Nakamura has replaced the boy with a girl and eliminated all of the drama of finding the peach, as depicted in Yoshika Uchida's The Dancing Kettle (Creative Arts, 1986). Here, the fruit simply appears at the couple's door. Upon emerging from the peach, the girl immediately announces that she is here to make the world a better place, whereas in the earlier version, the boy is cared for by the couple until he is 15 and then says "You have both been good and kind to me. I am very grateful for all you have done, and now I think I am old enough to do some good for others." His motivation is clear; hers is not. The helper animals in Nakamura's version are lured by the promise of peach dumplings, whereas in Uchida's story, the animals genuinely want to help in the fight against the ogres. In the earlier version, the boy is victorious in the battle and retrieves all the things the ogres have stolen. In this one, the ogre turns out to be a pussycat and they all share the peach dumplings. The power of the tale has been diminished by all these changes, and the girl's continual response of "peachy" to anything that happens is annoying. The illustrations have a rather flat quality but do support the story as written. Skip this diluted version.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ