The Fortune-Tellers [Paperback]

The story concerns a young man who wishes to seek his fortune and escape the drudgery of carpentry. After visiting a fortune teller the young man is convinced he will someday attain wealth, love, and long life. But on returning to the fortune teller's lair later, he finds the old man gone and people mistaking HIM for a fortune teller. In the end, he gains everything he ever wanted by telling people a caveat-laden series of predictions.

The story is nice and funny. It's told well and children will get the key to the fortunes easily on their own. But honestly, this book could have been made or broken by its illustrator. In the wrong hands it could easily have gone beyond poorly drawn into offensive. Therefore, we should all give a great big sigh of relief that it was instead placed in the capable and multi-talent hands of Ms. Hyman.

Basing her pictures in Cameroon (a land where her son-in-law was originally from), Hyman has produced a plethora of drop-dead gorgeous drawings. Says Hyman in her bio about this creation, the book is illustrated with her, "memories of the incredible beauty, strength, and diversity of the landscape and people of Cameroon". Certainly the landscapes are lovely. From fields of grassland, mountain ranges, and wooded boulevards it stuns. But I was most taken with the people in this book. Honestly, I don't know how Hyman did it. Every single woman in this book is wearing several different printed cloths. Every man is different from every other. Every baby completely easy to distinguish from every other. If you want to be blown away, you don't even have to open the darned book. Just turn it over and look at the group of ten people standing on the back cover. From the coy baby to the pair of brothers to the girls that regard the viewer with matter-of-fact eye contact, I was just stunned. And I haven't even begun to tell you about the millions of tiny details in EVERY single picture. There are hundreds of things to discover. For example, the old fortune teller owns a French to English dictionary propped up in his bed. Small lizards are identifiable in almost every picture if you care to seek them out. Observe also the interactions between friends and neighbors. Amazing.

My words are inadequate. This book deserves every drop of attention you have to spare. Kids will love it. Adults will feast their eyes on every scene. It is the most beautiful of Hyman's creations, and truly an effective labor of love. I adore this book.

We've travelled 40 miles to the city library several times over the last few years to check this book out. The last time, we had to wait for it to get back from the binders for repairs, and I realized I'd better find my own copy, because it could disappear, and it has become one of my personal "classics" for sharing with children. So I am ordering two; one for ourselves, and one for our little library here in town. (My granddaughter is seven years old now, and delights in reading the Fortune Teller herself, and will no doubt be reading it to her baby sister when she is old enough!) We highly recommend it!