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Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann Book Review

Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann
Publisher: NorthSouth
Release Date: October 1, 2015

Underground, right beneath your feet is an entire city full of moles. Caught up in the progress, one mole struggles to retain the balance between progress and preservation.

This is an odd almost wordless picture book that felt almost scary in its industrial revolution and subsequent progressions. These moles mirror the life of humans and felt very much like a commentary on modern society. What happens when progress begins to take over and pushes out life and beauty? What's more the story ends rather abruptly on a bit of a downer, which made the story feel more like a morality tale for adults rather than children. It's not that I don't think kids will get it, I absolutely think they will, it is just that I don't think they will care. My biggest concerns at five were whether I would get to stay up late, if I could convince my Mom to give me some candy, and being able to read a full sentence. The idea of creating a story about progress and society for 3-7 year olds seems almost absurd. Leaving all that aside, the illustrations were beautiful and I would be interested to see what kind of story a young child would come up with if you just let them look at the pictures and leave out the words. Somehow, I imagine that they will come up with something far different than the intended message.



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