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Author: James Kasperson Illustrator: Karlyn Holman
Retail Price: Paperback • $8.95 Lured by the sights, smells, and sounds of civilization, little brother moose ventures far from home and gets lost in urban adventures. How Moose finds his way home again by listening with his whole being to the prompting of the earth is an inspiring example of nature at work. James Kasperson’s sensitive story and Karlyn Holman’s beautiful watercolors will help parents, teachers, and children alike appreciate the inner workings of nature and of themselves. |
— Horn Book
Drawing on Native American and other spiritual traditions, this parable tells of a young moose lured from lake to town by his curiosity. Moss – the Algonquin word for “moose” – travels down a “laughing” stream. But soon the moose’s ears twitch at unfamiliar sounds, and he disregards the “small voice within” that “spoke of the bog. ‘Come home, little brother.’” Pursuing the call of the river (“Follow me!”) he climbs the riverbank and sees a “hard” river roaring with “speed and power” (a busy road). Enthralled, he follows strange smells through the night, and rests among concrete “cliffs.” By mid-morning, his curiosity waning, he realizes he is lost. Fortunately, flocks of migrating Canadian geese overhead point the way back to his bog-home. By holding steadily to the moose’s unique perspective, Kasperson balances the preachy undertone of his tale. Holman’s soft-focus, full-bleed watercolors adhere tightly to the text, amplifying it with needed visual cues.
— Publishers Weekly (1995)
A young moose is lured to town from his home in the north woods. He follows a road and a railway that roar like a river “as if filled with spring water pounding against rocks.” Then the moose finds his way back home by following the migrating geese. Moving beyond anthropomorphism, Kasperson tries to imagine how the moose experiences the world, “listening” with all the senses, caught by excitement and curiosity. The soft, blurry watercolors extend the text, showing the human reality of what the moose perceives. Children will enjoy seeing that the “hard river” is what we know as a road and that a moose could see a truck as a bellowing creature “with wild shining eyes.” The climax is a double-page spread of the young moose with his head raised, listening to the geese calling. Kids will get the message of the connectedness of the animals and the earth. Hazel Rochman.
— Booklist – American Library Association
