Customer Reviews

Looking for Atlantis

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

 

 

I am giving this book 5 stars for the benefit of my two sons, ages 10 and 6. Both of them have enjoyed this book so much, it can't be rated any less than 5 stars. The pictures are mesmorizing and add to the magic of the storyline which teaches children to use their imagination. It also teaches them that, with their imagination, anything is possible!

I just spent a week at the beach with my two grandsons, ages 4 and 5. We read this book over and over and over and over again. Searching for objects and moving through tiny doors to each new magical page, their interest never waned. I recommend it very highly!

When the narrator of "Looking for Atlantis" was a ten-year-old boy his grandfather came home from the sea for the first time. His grandfather had traveled every ocean a hundred times and visited every country of the world from the plains of Patagonia to the distant volcano of Tristan da Cunha. Before he died the boy's grandfather gives him the large wooden chest by his bed, telling him "Everything you could ever want is in that chest if you know where to look for it." He also talks about the boy getting to Atlantis, explaining that you have to learn to look for the mythical land but that it "is right here, all around you."

After the grandfather dies writer and artist Colin Thompson shows us the lifetime of treasures contained within that chest. "Looking for Atlantis" is primarily a picture book. By this I mean two things. First, that the chief attraction here are the pictures, in which Thompson often fills every square inch with literally dozens of details. You can spend an hour just looking over everything that we see when the boy opens up his grandfather's chest for the first time. But those who are familiar with Thompson's other work, such as "The Paperbag Prince" and "How to Live Forever," know that is exactly what to expect from his books. Young readers will have to ask adults for explanations as to the meaning of "Macho Mariner Biscuits with Extra Weevils" and to point out which bird is the Dodo.

Second, "Looking for Atlantis" is a picture book because after the detailed narrative at the beginning the words disappear for the most part. There are six picture spreads in which there is only a single line to be read. Clearly Thompson knows that once he gets going with his detailed illustrations words are something of a distraction from the main feast. However, there is a point to the story regarding the power of the imagination and the transcendental quality of love, it is just that the art is so visually stunning that you have to remind yourself that there is a narrative thread to the book as well.

There are also references to famous paintings throughout the book, which means that young readers will be able to return to this book as they grow older and find they get more of what is going on in each illustration. Thompson came up with the idea of "Looking For Atlantis" because he wanted to do a book that was a cross-section of a house. Having already used the idea in the 1993 Leeds calendar, Thompson needed a reason for a young boy to go through all the rooms on a house and decided that searching for Atlantis was a much better idea than just looking for a lost book or a cat. Eventually the idea was refined to the point that Thompson clearly had a lesson about how to look for something was more important than knowing where to look for something. Just be forewarned: once you enjoy one of Thompson's picture books you are going to want to track down the rest of them as well.

My five-and-a-half year old daughter loves this book, and we plan on checking out other titles by the author. "Looking for Atlantis" is a visual treat for any child and adult who has an active imagination. The illustrations are fantastical, magical, and give free rein to creativity and imagination. The book begins on a somber note. A young boy is at his grandfather's death bed, and is exhorted to find the lost city of Atlantis. The boy is puzzled - how is he to find this mythical lost city and added to this problem is his grief at the loss of his beloved grandfather.

What ensues over the next couple of pages is a magical adventure as the boy finds himself opening up to the possibilities of other worlds, a different way of looking at things however mundane, and of the power of imagination and an open-mind. It is through this widening of his mind and the way that he looks at the world around him that the boy comes to the realization that his grandfather may no longer be physically around, but his love and his 'essence' lives on in the boy's surroundings, in the things he does and sees, limited only by the power of his imagination.

I have held brief but meaningful discussions with my daughter about death since she was a toddler, and she now accepts that living things, people, animals, plants do eventually die. It helped her deal with the death of our beloved pet rabbit last summer. Death is not to be feared, it is to be understood, and I felt this book handled the topic quite well, albeit in an abstract manner. This is where we adults can play meaningful roles - by guiding our young to make sense of what is often a painful and difficult subject. "Looking for Atlantis" is a beautiful, imaginative book that will be treasured by my daughter and I for a long time to come.

Both my young grandchildren love being read to and, increasingly, reading. When they come over to spend a weekend, we pick up a dozen or two children's books at library. We don't subject them to thorough review and until this volume, the practice has never been a problem.

This book should be somehow stickered. It opens with a ten year old child at his grandfather's deathbed. There is no attempt to explain death or loss. The author is simply using the old man's death as a vehicle. Uhmmmm, gets a little uncomfortable for an elderly grandfather reading to his grandson at bedtime. The story is supposed to be an allegory about how your imagination will take you to places you otherwise could never visit, such as the Lost Continent of Atlantis.

The book is actually intended to showcase the author's artwork which is reminiscent of Edward Gorey. The story, such as it is, is cobble together to fit the illustrations.

If the book were intended to help children deal with loss or had some actual purpose, I might hold it in higher esteem. But as it is, I think it a poor book and a poor choice for young children. Why should a child be reminded that their grandparents quite possibly only a fleeting presence in their lives?

I found the author's bio on the dust jacket pretentious: who really cares that Colin Thompson lives in "rural isolation"? Of what interest is it that "[h]e and his wife care passionately about the environment and are undertaking a program of conservation on their own land"? I would suggest that Colin Thompson spend more time in the company of people and recognize that subjects like the deaths of loved ones are not to be treated as throwaway plotlines for a book of illustrations with a treacly message.

Yes, ultimately the error is mine for not reviewing the book more carefully - but I now know better and will avoid Colin Thompson's output in the future.

Jerry