Tololwa M. Mollel grew up in Tanzania, the book's jacket tells us, on a coffee farm near Mount Kilimanjaro. And it promises "a vivid sense of another culture's perspective" as Mollel describes a kingdom of animals in Africa. The drawings are colorful but simple, leaving the story grounded in the world of imagination. Anything can happen here, as the birds hold a meeting and decide that one of them needs to travel the kingdom in search of rain.
And who's the unlucky bird who must undertake the journey? It turns out it's their cousin, the Bat, who'd just happened to be visiting when they draw lots. The bat flies over trees and mountains, and eventually complains to the moon. "I can't bring rain," the Moon replies. "My task is to wash and oil the night's face.
"But you can try the stars."
It's a loving tribute to nature, since the bat will visit the rest of the elements - the stars, the clouds, the winds, and the sun. Each one describes their fanciful function, in a suitably ambitious drawing. Illustrator Beatriz Vidal was born in Argentina - she dedicates her drawings to "mi querida Madre, in memoriam." She draws imaginative two-page illustrations that suggest the forces rather than represent them. A swirl of blues and whites is not just some clouds, but "The Clouds."
If there's a message here, it's that each powerful force will talk to each other, and try to get along. "I'll help you, " the Sun says, "in return for a favor. After the rain falls, choose for me the greenest patch on the forest top, and build me a nest there." The sun is tired of having to travel all the way to the horizon for its rest. And Mollel's ambitious story also falls into the "Pourqoui" genre - a story which invents a elaborate reasons for why things are the way they are.
The characters can be a little too simple - helpful and friendly, the stock figures of any children's story. But it's fun to see familiar figures from the world appearing in a grander context. When the rain falls, it's all the work of the unseen Sun above. And the Peacock promises the Sun's nest will be filed with "all the colors of the rainbow!"
And the story drags on through one last unexpected twist: the birds renege on their promise to build the Sun a nest. They celebrate their harvest instead, and the bat hides in a banana tree, fearing the next day's sunrise. "She hid from the shame of a broken promise, a shame the birds did not feel." In the years to come, the birds never did build the Sun's nest, and for the rest of eternity bats would hide from the day in their caves.
And every day as the Sun sets, "it would linger to cast one last, hopeful glance at the forest top..."