The Mystery of the Mayflower Bowl

Kelly L. Green is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual’s
Children’s Literature edition.

Winkie, the elf, and his friends love to sit on the beach and sing their
old songs, or make up new ones. One night they decide to visit a
mysterious cottage near the beach that, during the day, is always
bustling with visitors carrying packages. The elves ask Hightail, a
naughty brown squirrel, to help them get into it. But it’s a gift
shop! The elves are careful not to disturb anything, and they leave
their own gift, a beautifully carved mayflower bowl. Their thoughtful
behavior so impresses Hightail that he vows never to disturb anything in
the gift shop again.

This gently told tale is so sickly sweet that those who persevere to
the end may find themselves feeling somewhat ill. The language is as
precious and cloying as the plot, and while I am a great lover of
fantasy, I do like it to have some basis in emotional reality. (The
elves are too good for my imagination to cope with.) An unattractive
book (the cover has a black-and-green design on a taupe background), I
couldn’t even convince my young audience to sit down and let me read
it to them. The strange, black-and-white illustrations present the elves
as buglike children with pointy ears and antennae. Though this book is
filled with good intentions, it is not recommended.