Rain Player

Product Information

When a terrible drought is predicted, a young ball player challenges the rain god to a game of pok-a-tok, hoping to win the rain and save his people. He worked for several years as a clown before moving to Maryland and joining the Prince George's Country Puppet Theatre where he met his wife Donna Harris. After his children were born, he become a full-time author/ illustrator, using layers of cut paper to illustrate children's books.

At the end of the book he included a notes page that discussed the actual event or tradition or practice of the people that he incorporated into a story.A young, athletic braggart learns his lesson, assisted by mother nature, and ends up saving his city from devastating drought.

As a boy of nine, Booker works in a salt mine from the dark of early morning to the gloom of night, hungry for a meal, but even hungrier to learn to read. The beautifully executed, luminous illustrations capture the atmosphere of an African-American community post-slavery: the drudgery of days consumed by back- breaking labor, the texture of private lives conducted by lantern- light. In this cultural legend, one has to appeal humbly and righteously to nature to bring the rain that nourishes the corn, and thereby nourishes life. Wisniewski evolved the storytelling techniques and art skills that eventually led to his picture books with their unique cut-paper illustrations. Pik is a brave Maya boy and tries to save his civilisation from being engulfed in a year of drought.Though the story is simple and straightforward, and I enjoyed it, whatever you may find lacking in it is more than made up for by 1) did I mention the art?