The Story of the Search for the Story

I admire the intentions of this book. I didn’t enjoy it. It introduces its readers to several great figures in world literature and tries to make a point about censorship and freedom of speech at the same time. The Norwegian author and illustrator have already done the same sort of thing for world art in Anna’s Art Adventure. However, there isn’t much of a story, and I’m not sure whom it’s for. I wonder whether a younger child, who isn’t likely to be sampling Joyce, Proust or Rushdie just yet, is likely to be interested in meeting them in this way. An older child, who might be, would find this picture book introduction embarrassing for all concerned. It is always awkward to judge a text that has been translated, but this does seem ponderous and humourless. The illustrations, which are almost uniformly dark, do not convey much about the authors or their work and contribute very little to the telling of the story.