From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up–A picture book with a text adapted straight from the libretto of Puccinis opera. The illustrations are exotic representations of static scenes in a lovely palette of golden earth tones enriched with rusty red, clear white, and definitive black. For readers new to the world of opera, this would be a good introduction to the world of Cho-Cho-san and her tragic love affair. However, the stilted language might prove an obstacle. Another difficulty might lie in explaining the heroines suicide while in the same room with her young son (though Cho-Cho-san retires behind a discreet screen for the actual moment), especially to those not familiar with the bravura gestures of grand opera. The book is eye-catching, pleasing to opera buffs, and a faithful introduction to those about to attend their first performance. But, oh! It sadly lacks those soaring arias.–Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
Gr. 6-9. Though J. Alison James' retelling of Puccini's tragic opera is presented as a picture book, the story's uncomfortable themes of racism and sexism, and plot elements that include wife-buying, infidelity, and suicide, are hardly appropriate for young children. But older readers, and even some adults, will find this Taiwanese import a convenient, visually splendid way to prepare for seeing the opera or one of its spin-offs (like Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Miss Saigon). James' fidelity to the original results in dense paragraphs full of digressions (exquisite arias seem like non sequiturs when they are forced into a traditional narrative) and lays bare troubling elements of the story, such as playboy Pinkerton's dismissive attitude toward women ("All women are the same when they talk. Such foolishness"), without offering young readers any critical perspective on the opera's cultural milieu. Suggest this alongside other materials about the opera, but do suggest it: Fu?ikova's delicate, intelligent artwork captures the soul of the opera, evoking turn-of-the-century Nagasaki in large, elaborate paintings modeled on Japanese woodblock prints. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
