Making the Moose Out of Life by Nicholas Oldland
My rating: 4/5 cats
brian got me this book.
i’m not sure if his reasoning was
1) because it is canadian
2) because of the “clever” wordplay of the title
3) because he thinks that a picture book is the limit of my intellectual capacity
or
4) because it ends up being a survival narrative and he knows how i like those
i am going to go with option #2. and grumble about it.
this is a story about a moose who is very fearful of life and all its possibilities, when the possibilities require him to do anything involving movement or discomfort. oh, maybe brian is calling me lazy…
he does not like to get wet so he will not puddle jump. he does not like the wind, so he will not go kite flying. he does not like the cold, so he will not go skiing.
this moose is one heck of a wet blanket.
eventually, he starts feeling an emptiness inside of him, watching everyone else having fun and wondering if maybe it is possible that his stubbornness and grumpiness is holding him back in life.
so he goes against form one day, jumps into an idling sailboat and takes it for a spin. going from zero to grand theft boat is a pretty drastic change, so it is no surprise when karma sends a storm his way (with a picture of a shark near the boat, although no text to accompany the sighting) and he somehow ends up stranded on a desert island. no one knows how a sailboat parked in a lake in which there are many pine trees ended up on a desert island with many palm trees, or what kind of poorly-thought-out story is being sold here, but no matter. now we have a moose in a tiny island.
and instead of bitching and moaning about it, he pulls himself up by his antler-straps and goes out and gets all robinson crusoe and finds water and food, builds a shelter, makes a signal fire, and befriends a tortoise, with whom he plays volleyball.
they have a great deal of fun together, and the moose’s inability to engage in life seems to be cured—hooRAY!
but one day, a cruise ship comes to the rescue! leaving his little tortoise-buddy behind, our moose-hero clambers aboard the cruise ship for rescue and shuffleboard! see?? you see? he has learned his lesson and now he is able to actually be a part of his own life! and he loves it!!
and once he gets home to the other animals with whom he had refused to puddle jump etc (who are, for some reason really glad to see this formerly super-lame moose), he finds that the lessons he learned have carried over into his old environment, and now he knows how to have fun and everything is super peachy-keen! and he becomes pen pals with the tortoise, although why, if there is regular mail-delivery to the desert island, he wasn’t rescued far sooner is anyone’s guess! whe!
thank you for the book, brian! i read the whole thing!!
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