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Welcome to the Kitopedia. All entries are © 2001-2007 Christopher Sunami, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. These entries are NOT publicly licensed. No entries may be reproduced without permission and attribution.
NOTE: Most essays on this site represent original theoretical work. If you find these articles interesting, inspiring or helpful, please let me know. If you refer to them, please give me and this website credit. In addition, links back to this page in blogs or from other sites are always appreciated!
NOTE: Most essays on this site represent original theoretical work. If you find these articles interesting, inspiring or helpful, please let me know. If you refer to them, please give me and this website credit. In addition, links back to this page in blogs or from other sites are always appreciated!
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Hero For Christ
How The Fisherman Tricked The Genie
"How the Fisherman Tricked the Genie"
by Kitoba Sunami, Illustrated by Amiko Hirao
Atheneum (Simon & Schuster, 2002)
Selected by the International Reading Association as a Notable Book of 2003
Nominated for the Georgia Children's Book Award in 2006.
NEWS:
FULL REVIEWS
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review
This first-time team offers a dramatic retelling of stories from the Thousand and One Nights, super-saturated with life and color by illustrator Hirao. A dark-skinned fisherman in a bleached white robe casts his nets and finds a bottle. From it he releases a genie, whose gargantuan proportions Hirao emphasizes with a perspective that places readers at the blue-hued specter's knee. When, far from granting him wishes, the genie threatens to kill him, the fisherman warns him that evil will be repaid with evil, and in the Arabian Nights tradition illustrates his warning by telling him a story. In the story, Dhuban, a curious little stranger, saves a king's life and warns him not to forget the favor, illustrating his warning with still another story. The king disregards the fable, kills Dhuban, and discovers too late that evil is indeed repaid in kind. The fisherman, meanwhile, realizing that his story made no impression on the genie, outwits him. Elegantly designed and economically narrated, the volume showcases each tale in a unique font, and the lush backgrounds and exotically applied pastels unite the interrelated themes (especially the power of "Heaven and fate"). Odd angles and exaggerated perspectives add cinematic momentum to the spreads. Hirao's broad sweeps of shimmering blues and oranges vibrate against each other as intensely as the horror and humor in the stories themselves. An old classic made entirely contemporary. Ages 5-9.
From School Library Journal
Starred Review
Grade 3-6-This story-within-a-story begins when a poor fisherman catches a brass bottle. Opening it, a genie that has been imprisoned for 3000 years is released and angrily expands to a great size, announcing that he will kill his rescuer. The fisherman tells him a story of a man who kills the doctor who healed him of a disease because the monarch found the cure humiliating, and another story in which a prince kills his faithful dog. The genie is not moved by the tales and demonstrates his great power by making himself even larger. The clever man then asks if he can make himself tiny, and the foolish genie is soon back in the bottle and cast into the sea. "The rising of the moon./The setting of the sun./The teller is tired./The story is done." The illustrator's effective use of shape creates a sense of mystery and magic in this original tale that incorporates motifs from the "Arabian Nights," folktales, fables, and biblical accounts. Readers will take satisfaction in seeing the poor fisherman outwit evil in this complex and creative story cycle.
Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN
"The author embeds two stories into a third to create a marvelous web... This is one of the more unusual books I've read in years, and I mean that as a high compliment."
- David Ross, Long Beach Press-Telegram
"A fresh offering from fresh voices"
- John Peters, Booklist