I Can Hear the Sun: A Modern Myth

Polacco (Babushka's Mother Goose, 1995, etc.) adds to her list of memorable characters in this somewhat mawkish tale of throwaway (homeless) people, a blind goose, and a park keeper named Stephanie Michele. The orphan Fondo spends his summer days sitting on a park bench in a nature preserve on Merritt Lake, watching the homeless people and the geese. Stephanie Michele, a big-hearted, middle-aged African-American woman, welcomes and befriends Fondo. She teaches him to help her care for the geese, shows him a blind goose who needs a little special help, and gives him an official park shirt. The goose becomes Fondo's special charge; in fact, he spends so much time caring for the geese that the throwaway people tease, "Pretty soon, you're gonna turn into a goose!" When Fondo learns he will be sent away as a "special needs" child, he wishes he could fly away with the geese--and does. The title page calls this story "A Modern Myth," but most of its elements are too grounded in reality to achieve mythic status. The most fanciful aspects may be the cute bag lady and jolly Vietnam vet. Polacco's characteristic illustrations in warm brown, peach, and green, capture the vulnerability of the unwanted boy, the beauty of the wild geese, and the solid strength and loving warmth of Stephanie Michele. If only the rest of the book were as real as she is.

Copyright 1996 Kirkus Reviews, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 2-4-Polacco introduces an unusual cast of characters in this modern myth. Stephanie Michele works in the park caring for the wildlife, and, unofficially, for the homeless folks who live there. A boy, Fondo, shows up one day and seems to belong. Stephanie and Fondo share a sensitivity to nature that others can't comprehend or appreciate. Then, they learn that the people at the settlement house where Fondo lives plan to send him away because he is a special-needs case. He runs away and accepts an invitation by the geese to fly away with them. The park "family" vow to keep his disappearance a secret, but readers are let in on this "true story" because Polacco knows Stephanie Michele personally. This picture book that points up the need for acceptance of all sorts of people is filled with graceful language and deftly rendered multimedia artwork done in predominantly earth tones. The artist places her subjects center stage on the white pages and does an expert job of capturing their poses and expressions with an economy of line and touches of color. This title is similar to Polacco's Boat Ride with Lillian Two Blossom (Philomel, 1988; o.p.) in the suspension of reality, yet her writing always seems somehow, magically, to make anything possible.-Sharon R. Pearce, San Antonio Public Library, TX

Copyright 1996 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.