KEY POINTS:
Let's start by conceding that this is A Lovely Book. I mean those capital letters. With its satiny paper, stylish fonts, glowing dust-jacket, sepia or ochre-tinted pages, and misty, double-page water-colours, this is The Book as Beautiful Object - not necessarily equating with The Book as Rewarding Story.
So what is the story? An environmental narrative-cum-sermon which presses every emotional button. Young Michael (subtle choice of name) is bird-watching on the Thames early one morning when he sees an exhausted bottlenose whale in the water.
The whale speaks to him - at length, about its cetacean family, the ways humans are destroying the ocean and its inhabitants, and how hope lies only in the young. "The old ones are greedy. They have hard hearts and closed minds." So, it transpires, do some of Michael's classmates when he tries to convince them of what has happened.
Ex-Children's Laureate and damn good writer Michael Morpurgo has turned the much-publicised 2006 whale death in the Thames into a full-frontal plea for the planet. I agree with the message. I acknowledge the author's sincerity, admire the direction and pace of his plot, and I agree you'll be moved by the ending. But there's a feeling of self-indulgence about the whole production. The tone is smug and sometimes hectoring.
Christian Birmingham's shimmering, Turneresque images of river, sea and underwater life will make adults coo but, I suspect, may make kids yawn. And yes, I do wonder how many trees were cut down to make this well-intentioned but inappropriately pretty thing.
This Morning I Met a Whale
By Michael Morpurgo (Walker Books $29.99)
* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.
