cover image Children of the Great Lake

Children of the Great Lake

Percy Trezise. HarperCollins Publishers, $10 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-207-17677-7

According to a foreword, this Australian import was inspired by a scientific discovery that coincides with Aboriginal legends about a huge freshwater lake that, before the Ice Age, stood where the Gulf of Carpentaria stands today. The story itself features four children of the ``Bird people'' who are swept away to the island of the frightening Wonambi, ``a huge monster snake.'' Along the way Trezise fits in a compendium of exotic animals as well as bits of information on hunting, food preparation and canoe construction. Despite the handsome, naively rendered land- and seascapes, however, these exciting story elements may swim in a sea of lost context. North American audiences, for example, may be stymied by the opening sentences, which refer to but never define ``Bird Dreaming'' and ``Brolga Dreaming.'' The language is stiff (a hunted animal ``would soon be crippled by spears and dispatched swiftly''), and, in the absence of a more informative introduction, unlikely to spark the reader's imagination. Ages 3-8. (Nov.)