Braums Fruit Yogurt Swirl

An invitation to travel

Tea clouds , Mal Peet, Elspeth Graham, Juan Wijngaard (ill.),

Ed Tourbillon, 2010. From 7 / 8 years.

Translated by Elisabeth Sebaoun.

"On the heights of the Himalayas, the mother of the little Tashi picks tea for a living. While she works Tashi sitting under the trees playing with the monkeys and their offspring.
The day his mother falls ill Tashi realizes she must go alone to pick the tea and reap the meager salary that will pay the doctor and buy something to eat. "

This story delicately portrays the lives of tea pickers in India. It is impossible to read it without thinking a bit, in a small corner of his head, works great writer J. Rudyard Kipling! Layout (really neat) contributes to emerge this resentment with framed artwork, a watermark and a frieze of paper dyed yellow / beige, for a story rich in imagination and consistent descriptions.

A life close to nature and monkeys to be traversed by the hierarchical relations between men (castes). The little girl is here our heroine, beautiful, courageous and sparkling, it advances with the power of innocence and "large" in this world. At least, that monkeys who will hear and help propel it into a more brilliant than the morning light flooding the sky ; there where problems, if majors are they, disappear.

This story has directed successful readers. It is nevertheless written in a rather simple but paragraphs are sometimes too long, you'd better know hold your breath ...

Preview: "Tashi's eyes sought his aunt, but she guessed she could count on his help. Sonam did not dare contradict the foreman for fear of it making an enemy, she hid her face with a piece of her scarf and turned away. "

At the end, a note states that the authors Tea clouds was inspired several stories about the tea pickers. But tea cloud is really picked by monkeys?

A very beautiful album, tender and poetic, to offer or afford without hesitation.

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Mal Peet (or Malcolm Peet) is an author English has published numerous novels (the first was The Guardian). He was educated in England at the University of Warwick. With his wife, Elspeth Graham , he wrote and illustrated several picture books for children education.

Juan Wijngaard is an illustrator.

His site: http://juanwijngaard.com