The Sacred Banana Leaf
PreSchool-Grade 3—Kanchil, a mouse deer, is a popular Southeast Asian trickster who manages to outwit larger animals that would prefer to eat him. In this adventure, he falls into a pit while eating some delicious rice cakes out of a banana leaf and not watching where he is going. Stuck, he conceives a clever plan that eventually enables him to finagle his way out of the hole by attributing sacred power to the banana leaf and fooling a large snake, a boar, and a hungry tiger. The beautiful, stylized East Indian artwork was created by applying paint on cloth beginning with geometric outlines, and then filling in details on light tan or deep green backgrounds. The pit appears as a series of circular playing cards: a variety of richly colored and patterned borders festoon the outside of the rim while the underside consistently shows a ring of fish. Instructions on how to make a simple card game provide an opportunity to extend the pleasure of this handsome book. Reminiscent of Betsy Maestro's charmingA Wise Monkey Tale(Crown, 1975), Scott's version of the story is anchored within its cultural context, and an author note is appended. Light humor and colloquial dialogue combine to make this a fun read-aloud.—Kirsten Cutler, Sonoma County Library, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.