Blake Freeman

If I were to rate this book based on illustrations alone, this book would easily be a 5 star read. The illustrations are some of the cutest I've ever seen in my life.

The actual story, however.... whooo. It was not good. I had a few issues with this book overall:

1. Overly preachy message. I am all for animal welfare. I love animals. I agree that kids should be taught to love and respect them as well. However, this is not the way to do that. The way they went about giving this message was show more incredibly insensitive and reminded me of those crazy people that splash blood on people who wear fur coats. To act like all circus animals and zoo animals are being abused is false and I think it's wrong to give children the impression that it's true. It was so overly extreme, it was almost laughable. I can kind of see kids being really sad in an upset and unhelpful way after reading this. What's really sitting with me the wrong way is how Haibu threw out her fur coat because a polar bear screamed at her and tried to kill her because it's baby died so she could stay warm. Listen pal, Haibu is comes from the frickin' North where it's pretty much too cold for human life without the fur coats. It's not like she was wearing the thing as a fashion statement. She was wearing it to survive. That's basic survival. That's nature. That's fine. Now the baby polar bear died for no reason because she won't even be using it to stay warm, since it's now sitting in a dump. That's just as bad in my eyes as killing for sport, something that this book preached against.

2. Logic flaws out the wazoo. First of all, how did we get from Haibu pouting in her bedroom to her building an igloo and ice fishing to her fighting a polar bear to her drifting out all the way to New York? Like... how? Explain. That doesn't make sense. Secondly, if this little girl somehow did manage to break all of the animals out of the circus, while the circus workers were aware of this fact I might add, how would she just get away with it? No way. The truck driver with all the animals in it would be arrested. Haibu would go to Juvie and all of the animals would be returned to their rightful owners anyway. Yeesh!

3. The kids in this book don't talk like kids. They talk like full grown adults who think they're talking like kids. Lots of weirdly adult words and references thrown in the book that no normal 7-10 year old would ever think to say. Have the authors even met kids these days? They talk about poop and slime and unicorns.

This is the kind of book that makes me wish I worked in publishing as an editor because I truly feel like this book needed help from people who weren't so closely working on the project to help fix some of the faults. This book could have been great. Instead, it just angers me greatly. show less

Haibu Lost in New York is a cute little tale about a very spirited little girl off to find adventure. Ready to shed the title of "Little," Haibu is ready to take on anything and has to when she finds herself a long, long way from home. With the help of some new friends, Haibu finds herself on a mission of freedom that requires her own personal expertise. She must be brave there are others depending on her, and she can not let them down. Plus, there is always time for an adventure before show more going home. show less

I think this story has its heart in a good place in some regards. However, it certainly should be discussed with children that are old enough to sort out the caring, decent parts from the unrealistic, misleading ideas.
Haiku is a brave, adventurous girl from Montooka (far North) who has a special gift of being able to talk to animals. Through a completely implausible series of events, she interacts with a polar bear, gets stuck on a floating piece of ice with a baby seal, is picked up by a show more ship, lands in NYC, and recruits some orphans to rescue some wild animals from a circus.
Whew, okay - - just some of the discussion points for kids who read the story... Children should not run off on their own in the wild OR in the city. Exposure can kill you. Wild animals should be respected - but they are not friendly. All animals deserve to be free and happy. Sometimes humans do make terrible mistakes by keeping animals in cages. (Slavery is also mentioned and should be discussed.)
This might be an interesting story to explore animal rights issues but it's not a great fit to read to very young kids. There are many unrealistic plot points and the themes are a weird counterpoint to the wide-eyed cutesy illustrations.
I respect the intent - there aren't many elementary age chapter fiction books that deal with mistreatment of animals. show less

I think this story has its heart in a good place in some regards. However, it certainly should be discussed with children that are old enough to sort out the caring, decent parts from the unrealistic, misleading ideas.
Haiku is a brave, adventurous girl from Montooka (far North) who has a special gift of being able to talk to animals. Through a completely implausible series of events, she interacts with a polar bear, gets stuck on a floating piece of ice with a baby seal, is picked up by a show more ship, lands in NYC, and recruits some orphans to rescue some wild animals from a circus.
Whew, okay - - just some of the discussion points for kids who read the story... Children should not run off on their own in the wild OR in the city. Exposure can kill you. Wild animals should be respected - but they are not friendly. All animals deserve to be free and happy. Sometimes humans do make terrible mistakes by keeping animals in cages. (Slavery is also mentioned and should be discussed.)
This might be an interesting story to explore animal rights issues but it's not a great fit to read to very young kids. There are many unrealistic plot points and the themes are a weird counterpoint to the wide-eyed cutesy illustrations.
I respect the intent - there aren't many elementary age chapter fiction books that deal with mistreatment of animals. show less