The Storm

The Storm

Written and Illustrated by Akiko Miyakoshi

Kids Can Press, 2016, Ages 3-7

This story is about a little boy that is excited to get through his last day of school, so he can go to the beach the next day. The boy is upset when his teacher informs the class that they should get home immediately, as a large storm was approaching the area. As the teacher warned, a very large and dark storm arrives; leading the boy to become very disappointed and unhappy, as he is left with the option of waiting to go to the beach the following week. Distressed, the boy goes to bed and dreams of sailing a ship and struggling with the massive, dark storm, until he is finally able to push it away. In the morning, he awakes to a beautiful day with perfect weather to go to the beach, making the child quite excited for the time ahead. 

The Storm was written in a narrative writing style that was very modest and directed to be easily understood by children in the 3–7 year old audience. The author uses simple words and strays away from very complex sentence structure. The voice of the narration was in the first person, from the perspective of a little boy. 

All of the illustrations are done in a black and white scale with the exception of the last two pages of the book that incorporates the color blue. Each page is drawn in a sketchy style that looks like a pencil was the medium. The illustrations are very detailed, besides the people who have a more cartoonish quality to their facial features. The illustrator uses a lot of dark shading in the pictures to depict the big storm and lack of color to reflect the main character’s feelings. The blue at the end is the best example of the bright, happy feeling the main character feels with seeing a beautiful, sunny day. 

This book drew me in with the beautiful, unique illustrations and limit of colors. The illustrations continued to mesmerize me, as I skimmed through the pages. When I finally got into the book and actually read it, I was dissatisfied. In my opinion, the text paled in comparison to the great illustrations. I felt that the book didn’t have an actual content to gather from it, and it left me feeling like the story was pointless to read. I prefer story to have a message built-in while being enjoyable to read. 

Reviewed by CRF