The Golden Flower
by Nina Jaffe; illustrated by Enrique O. Sanchez
The Taino were the first people of Puerto Rico and this is a “recovered story” from their culture. This creation myth about the island starts with a small boy who plucks some seeds from the wind, which sprouts a dense forest atop a mountain. A golden pumpkin breaks open to let the ocean gush forth; the mountain becomes the Taino’s island home, surrounded by the teeming sea.
Sanchez completes this peek into a vanished culture with a tropical palette, with its warm, vivid colors, and primitive, blocky figures. But without a single epic character to follow, the story falls short of being compelling and fails to fire the imagination.
Rating: *\*\
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