Title: Adventure in the Land of Changes
Author: Rick Poplinger
Illustrator: Jose Tecson
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-6698-5041-0
Pages: 56
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book / Fantasy
Reviewed by: Barbara Miller
Pacific Book Review
Adventure in the Land of Changes is actually a trilogy of three books within: The Ever- Changing Forest; The Ever-Changing Waters; and The Ever-Changing Sky. Each follows a theme of clever rhyming text, imaginative creatures’ names, and most impressively – artwork of utterly whimsical embodiments of physical details truly beyond normal creativity. The synergy of these qualities makes this a Best-In-Class publication. It is like Alice in Wonderland meets Ogden Nash – so to speak. I personally was overwhelmed with each page to the point where I had to ask myself, “What came first – the narrative or the artwork?” That is the chicken-and-the-egg dilemma readers will need to ponder.
The first part, The Ever-Changing Forest, follows a young boy walking into a forest, and at each turn changing himself into a new imaginative creature. From an elephant trunk bearing nose along with spider monkey multiple tree-branch hanging tails, to reverse bending knees and kooky crazy eyes, we see the boy’s baseball cap on the head of these morphing characters with names such as a GLUNKEY, GWORM, and one of my favorites, the GUSNIKE. Frankly it is hard to explain the depth of creativity and artistry abound in this – and the other – stories.
The second of the three stories is titled The Ever-Changing Waters which actually gives the illustrator even more freedom to create outrageously detailed sea-creatures, with tentacles, eyes, shapes and colors only found in the oceans. Here the boy loses his arms and legs as he changes into a fin and tail with two yellow humps on his back, called a KNISH. You can imagine what his next creature looks like, called an OCTOSLOB! I found the water’s exit-image truly amazing when the boy goes from a star fish – and is washed up on the beach turning back into the shape of the human – only looking as it he was a sand-sculpture.
The third book, The Ever-Changin Sky completes this trilogy having the theme of bird- creatures and clouds drawn within the illustrations. Here we see a GLOB, sort of a flying sheep with a weathervane on its nose, blending into clouds with camouflage and having little cherub-like wings. Then even the story acknowledges the weirdest one, a PICADEE – a flying beagle dog with rather large features, but again the baseball cap on its head.
It is rather challenging to fully describe the overwhelming creativity revealed on every page of this award-winning children’s book. As few books achieve this acme of talent, I cannot stress enough the recommendation to buy your copy of this book for all families with little ones seeking bedtime stories and fun-tastic reading experiences. We hope to see more from author Rick Poplinger and his illustrator as they make a team worthy of shared enthusiasm by all of their readers. They certainly made me a fan.
