Author picture

James Kwan

Author of Dear Yeti

2 Works 118 Members 6 Reviews

Works by James Kwan

Dear Yeti (2015) 84 copies
How It Feels to Be a Boat (2017) 34 copies

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Common Knowledge

Gender
male

Members

Reviews

The illustrations are too adorable. I love the little bird flying back and forth between the intrepid explorers and the yeti. My favourite illustration is of the grizzly bear trying to eat the explorers when the yeti interrupts him mid-lick! The grizzly bear in general cracks me up, crawling around on his belly. Cute, happy ending.
 
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katebrarian | 4 other reviews | Jul 28, 2020 |
If you were a boat, how would you feel? What would it be like to contain twisting corridors in your insides, and to have many different passengers - each with a different set of priorities - inside your belly? And what would happen if the passengers to whom you played host began to quarrel, leading you to crash on some sharp rocks? Would you ever be whole again...?

Author/artist James Kwan, who made his picture-book debut with Dear Yeti, returns to the form in this second title, inviting the reader to consider life as a boat. No doubt intended as an allegory for the human condition - the ways we are pulled in different directions by our various and conflicting impulses, desires, and loyalties - How It Feels To Be a Boat is not entirely successful in my view, precisely because the allegory is so overt ("you are a boat," the narrator declares forcefully at the beginning of the book), but so unconvincing. Does one feel like a boat? The illustrations here, done in pencil and watercolor, and then enhanced digitally, are appealing, but not charming enough to compensate for a rather muddled text. Not sure to whom I'd recommend this one, assuming I'd recommend it at all...… (more)
½
 
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AbigailAdams26 | Mar 23, 2018 |
A darling story told via letters from two boys hunting for a yeti. Various adventures occur - baskets of berries staving off hunger, cold nights in a snow cave, grizzly bear encounter, footprint tracking.
 
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jherring | 4 other reviews | Feb 23, 2017 |
exploring, woods, night, scary - simple picture book
 
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melodyreads | 4 other reviews | Jan 20, 2016 |

Statistics

Works
2
Members
118
Popularity
#167,490
Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
6
ISBNs
8

Charts & Graphs