Abel's Island | |||||||||||||||
William Steig | |||||||||||||||
Farrar Straus & Giroux | |||||||||||||||
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A review by Lela Olszewski
"They enjoyed a pleasant lunch in the sunless woods, sharing
delicate sandwiches of pot cheese and watercress, along with
hard-boiled quail eggs, onions, olives, and black caviar. They
toasted each other, and everything else, with a bright champagne
which was kept cool in a bucket of ice. Then they played a jolly
game of croquet, laughing without much reason, and they continued
laughing as they relaxed on a carpet of moss."
Abelard Hassam di Chirico Flint, of the Mossville Flints, is a well-to-do
young mouse, living off his mother's fortune and enjoying a life of leisure.
He expects the weather to be polite and is offended when rain spoils the
picnic. When Amanda's scarf flies into the storm, he impulsively tries
to retrieve it and is swept away by the storm: Abel has begun his hero's
journey. During the months he is stranded on the island, Abel, true to his
name, learns he is capable of foraging for food, solving engineering problems
(even when faced with repeated failure), defending his life against
predators and surviving despair and loneliness. He contemplates God's
reasons for putting "loathsome, abominable creatures" like owls, cats and
fleas in the world and analyzes his love for Amanda. He gains an appreciation
for nature and is inspired "to try his hand at making something just for
its own sake, something beautiful." Stripped bare of all but the most
basic of civilization's trappings, Abel finds his true calling: he is an artist.
Like the more recent Brian Jacques' Redwall series (and many other books), the various
animals are not just anthropomorphized, but highly civilized: bears write
novels about war, toads go to carnivals, weasels say their prayers when
scared and so on. Yet, it is in leaving behind civilized ways that Abel
connects with the primitive, with the wild mouse within (to
paraphrase Robert Bly). Abel's journey is the opposite of Robinson
Crusoe's: rather than attempt to recreate civilization as Crusoe
did, Abel lets his civilized Victorian ways go. He learns to gnaw
wood with his teeth, to start a fire, to make wine from berries and
to fire clay into pottery. At one point, Abel chants an incantation
at an owl feather, sure that he has power over the owl as a result
and discovers the imaginative power of sympathetic magic. In connecting
with the elemental, Abel unlocks his artistic and heroic self.
Steig's illustrations augment the story in exactly the right way. When
Abel's friend Gower, a frog, leaves the island, you can tell precisely
what Gower and Abel are feeling from their stances and expressions in
the illustration. Amanda's joy at finally seeing Abel again is perfectly
expressed by one detail: she's thrown her hat on the floor in her
rush to embrace him. It's easy to understand why his illustrations
have appeared on so many New Yorker covers.
Abel's Island isn't without controversy: it's been banned in
Florida. In 1990, the Clay County school administrators removed the
book from the fifth- and sixth-grade optional reading lists. They
decided that passages such as, "He drank large draughts of his wine
and ran about everywhere like a wild animal, shouting and yodeling,"
violated the school district's substance abuse policy.
Abel's Island works on so many levels that it's no wonder it is a
classic and a Newbery Medal honor book. It's the perfect book to
read to aloud to younger children, who will be enthralled by the
animals and all the details of Abel's life on the island. A staple
of fifth-grade reading lists, the inventiveness and adventure of
the story captivate older children. Steig also includes a sprinkling
of the type of unusual words that delight children for their sounds:
skedaddled, equinocintal, sequestration. Adults respond not only to
the story, but to the universal emotions and questions Abel ponders.
Steig never talks down to his readers, nor does he simplify Abel's
struggles, both real and existential. If you haven't read Abel's Island,
take a half hour and treat yourself. If you have, read it aloud as a
treat for a friend.
Lela Olszewski is an avid reader of science fiction, fantasy, mystery and romance, as well as an eclectic mix of other fiction and non-fiction. She is also a librarian with an interest in readers' advisory, and believes fully in Rosenburg's Law: Never apologize for your reading tastes. She has no cats. |
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