From Library Journal
In this fable, a young Arab boy, lost in the desert, receives the gift of flight from the ancient god Gonn-Ben-Allah, Keeper of the Ghosts of Lost Names.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Twelve-year-old Ahmed, dazzled by the stars, falls off his camel into the desert sands and is sure he will now die. But he unearths a bronze face, weeps upon it--and it comes to life, expanding into a godlike giant named Gonn-ben-Allah. Instead of dying, Ahmed is soon flying--with Gonn, by himself, and vicariously in various historic contraptions, starting with the wings of Icarus, that Gonn shows him in visions. The point of this ostensible fable is that a person should aspire ever upward, because that is what being human is all about. But why are all the flying devices dubbed oblivion machines? What is the significance of Gonn's full name--after all, doesn't ben-Allah mean son of God? This is thin gruel, lacking any stylistic or conceptual depth and not helped by artist Chris Lane's drawings, which look as though Disney's
Aladdin is his favorite movie. Only the cachet of the Bradbury name gives it any allure.
Ray Olson
