Omu longs to find the magic he needs to create great whalebone carvings and inspired music on his harmonica, but he does not discover the inspiration until he stands watch beside a dying killer whale.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Omu, an Eskimo boy, tries to carve a seal from bone, but his father and another carver both tell him that he has not been able to put any life into his work. Believing that he is not a carver after all, Omu gives it up; still searching for a talent, he trades his spear for a harmonica. The other boys tease him, for he neither hunts nor carves, but sits around making terrible sounds. So Omu goes out to sea to play his harmonica and becomes friendly with whales who enjoy his music. When Skana, a great whale, is beached and dies, Omu stays with the once-mighty beast, carving a likeness from ivory. He attains "qarrtsiluni," or the stillness from which real creativity flows. Mayo's pictures treat this tale gently, showing Omu's community and the need to live within the environment. With the symbolic trading of a spear for a harmonica, Steiner's message is perhaps obvious, but no less worthy, and lives up to the poetic telling. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-4 Young Omu searches for something he can do well in a settlement that values hunting and fishing, neither of which he is good at. Most of all, he longs to make bone and ivory figures that live, like those of a great carver, but he cannot understand how to give spirit to form. After solitary encounters with killer whales with whom he communicates through musicespecially with one who is beached and must dieOmu finally finds the stillness he needs in order to create. He emerges from his experience consoled and reconciled. The softened contours and primarily aquatic coloring of the illustrationsmostly sweeping double-page spreadssupport the gentleness of the story. The concepts of the link between life-force and artful expression and of the kinship of all things in naturehere, specifically between whales and humanscome across strongly, but the telling is self-consciously grave, and the whole feels calculated to convey a message. Karen Litton, Confederation Centre Public Library, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book shows how artists seek to bring life into art,
By A Customer
This review is from: Whale Brother (Paperback)
This simple children's book will bring you to tears. The young artist learns from his dying friend a killer whale how an artist must bring life into his carving. This is lovely book about art, and on being open to freeing up the artist inside the child. As both a carver and a teacher I love this book.
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