Customer Reviews

Bravemole

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In this touching story illustrated with brilliant washed crayon pictures the tragedy of September 11 is revisited as seen by a small animal, a mole, a very ordinary mole at that.

Mole begins the bedtime story he tells babymole with "Once upon a time, there was a wicked dragon....," never imagining that he might see a dragon himself. After all, he is a very ordinary mole who sometimes wishes he could be more like Smartmoles who had exciting jobs or Bigmoles who knew a lot and were full of advice. Whenever he wished for this Mole reminded himself of how fortunate he was even though he was so ordinary - he had a wife who loved him and a babymole who thought he was wonderful.

Then on an extraordinarily beautiful day as Mole was on his way to his ordinary job he saw a shocking thing - a dragon, "worse than any picture he had seen." Then thousands of moles came running from the tall place where they worked; they were frightened, and Mole was, too. Suddenly they were all Moles Afraid running from the cruel dragon that began crashing into another tall molehill.

Then, just as suddenly, Mole turned and went back to the destruction. He did not know what he could do but he began digging. He dug all day and all night along with other ordinary moles. He dug until he was exhausted and his heart felt torn in two.

When Mole reached home at last he realized how very many ordinary moles there were in the world, and knew they were strong, brave, and steady. They would do whatever needed to be done to make the world safe for their baby moles.

This is a poignant carefully worded story that may well help young ones face their fears and conquer them.

- Gail Cooke

I lost someone that day. It's not something I can easily discuss, et when I "accidentally" picked up this book for my construction loving son, I didn't know what I was in for, but I am so thankful to have read this book with my children, ages 6 and 8. My 8 year old recognized the storyline though my 6 year old didn't quite pick up on the parallels. It is genlty told, with MUCH room for discussion and interpretation. I wish I knew a construction worker to give it too!

Bravemole

The book Bravemole is a wonderful story. It shows why you need to be brave to protect the ones you love. This book is great for younger readers.

This book is very exciting. Dragons where attacking the mountians and cities. This book has a great moral. The moral is you should never give up even if you are a normal person. This book is a happy book. It is a happy book because a normal mole becomes a hero and everyone likes him.

This book is a wonderful story. It is also ecxiting because dragons attack the city. No body is baddly hurt. It has a goo moral too. The moral is you should never give up even if you are a normal person. I highly suggest this book to anyone.

Even Disney is a little dark, and some stories with tragic portions have beautiful endings. This book has a good concept at large "even little people can do extaordinary things" but some things were to vague while other things were just way too complex. Overmole/God a tough concept to just throw in especially in the context it was used. The dragons were dubious, at the end of the book my son had lost the whole concept of the book because he was too concerned about where the dragons were, was anyone safe, were they coming back and would this little mole have no Daddy if he fought the dragons? The book throws out a dozen great concepts and uses a great real life model of heroism but doesn't really deliver on any one of them fully.

I can't believe this book is to help children understand 9-11. It does deal with big scary issues, but to me, it makes them seem even more scary than understanding what terrorists are. The Overmole (God figure) not answering is just a little icing on the creepy cake here, the scariest thing to me, is that the story starts with a society of moles that has tales of dragons, but always tells the children that dragons aren't real, then one day, dragons attack and demolish the city and kill the poor little moles. Okay, so now does my son wonder what else that I told him wasn't real will come and kill him in the night? To me, this book is more disturbing than reality in so many ways. As difficult as it is to help children understand 9/11, the key to their security is to help them understand why it happened, and how we're trying to make sure it doesn't happen again, assuming they can understand that. Instead, this book oversimplifies the cause and makes it not only something unpredictable and impossible to understand, but something that the adults have told the children is not something to worry about. I can't imagine a worse message. To make matters worse, it's directed at toddlers through very young school age children. I will throw this book away, and I NEVER throw books away. I'm glad the proceeds went to the Orphans of 9/11, but wish I'd just sent them the money instead of buying the boook.

Ok, let's think of the most horrific event of our times and rehash it for the children.

I just want to know WHAT were they thinking.

My boy picked this out at the library because he loves all things cute and fuzzy. We came home to delve into a re-creation of hell on earth. My kids don't know about what happened on Sept. 11th, so for them it was just another book poorly written (especially when unbeknownst to them I'm editing and censoring on the fly, leaving key information out of the story...perspiring over whether brave mole would be going home to baby mole and how I'd explain that one). As for the kids who know what transpired on that fateful day, I say,"Why put it in fuzzy-wuzzy form and force them to relive the horror?"

I understand the need to artistically express the pain and emotion of what happened, but can we not subject the kids to the wars of their fathers? At least until they can understand what it all really means. Ugh.

My second grade son was read this book in school to commemorate the attacks on the WTC. *For children under 10yrs, Bravemole is too graphic and should be avoided.*

Although this book tries to appeal to younger children with its very charming pictures the content is disturbing. The events of Sept. 11th are portrayed by cute and cuddly characters, but the real message that comes forward is that all good "bravemoles" should put their faith in "Overmole" and march off to war.

For older children that can scrutinize these issues Bravemole is a great way to ease into a difficult topic. This book should be targeted to older children who can discuss and comprehend the issues.