Storyteller: A Collection of 17 Stories for Children

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

This collection can best be described as a labor of love by a dedicated
nonprofessional. Hemlata Farida Ali is both writer and illustrator of
these stories and poems. Nearly every page boasts a bright, unaffected
illustration. Some pages are even hand-stenciled with glitter paint. The
characters are cute, but the page layout is often cluttered and awkward.


The text suffers from occasional grammatical errors, such as confusing
“they’re” with “their,” and a general lack of polish in the
plot and character departments. The following is an excerpt from a story
about a caribou named Boo-Boo: “There was caribou named Boo-Boo who
lost his shoe at the zoo. Here and there Boo-Boo flew looking for his
shoe. He had no clue what to do. So a map he drew of that zoo and
suddenly Boo-Boo knew where he had left his shoe. Boo-Boo left his shoe
where the cows go moo-moo ...” Whew. Not a first-choice purchase.