The Story of the Blue Planet (1999)

In most children’s books, from “Little Bear” to “The Jungle Book,” nature exists as a kind of utopia, a lush playground with anthropomorphized animals. It’s rare to find stories that realistically depict the natural world — as a beautiful but fragile realm under siege. Is it because Dr. Seuss so brilliantly impugned the human race’s ecological crimes in “The Lorax” that another masterpiece in the genre has seemed beyond reach? Because our children are so screen-­addicted and nature-starved, we fear ­further exiling them from the outdoors with tales of environmental peril? Or maybe it’s because such stories would expose any grown-up who travels by aircraft or uses Ziploc baggies as an environmental offender. Whatever the reason, eco-lit needs more attention, and devotees will be pleased to discover a new addition from the Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason, who writes with a Seussian mix of wonder, wit and gravitas. ... In the tradition of Roald Dahl and Maurice Sendak, Magnason’s story celebrates the ferity and fearlessness of childhood as an idealized state. ... Magnason’s writing is lean, swift and often lyrical (owing in part to an impressive translation by Julian Meldon D’Arcy), and for the most part he manages not to be didactic. ... the book, over all, is immensely satisfying — a major contribution to the sparsely populated eco-lit genre, and one that could entice other authors to contribute. Magnason’s story touchingly reminds us of the Dahlian principle that adults are “complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets”; and that children “are the music makers . . . the dreamers of dreams.” And further — that these dreamers may also be our best hope of unsticking the sun from the sky, of making the rains fall normally again and of repairing a real-life planet damaged by grown-ups.

The Story of the Blue Planet is overall highly successful, excellently written and illustrated, and it will undoubtedly be found on many children’s bedside tables ...

Carrying a load of messages to its readers, The Story of the Blue Planet reads like a parable, but Magnason never indulges in moralizing the reader and leaves him or her to make their own assumptions, so the story at its core never suffers from the burden of didacticism. … Aslaug Jonsdottir’s illustrations are the icing on the cake. Her layout approach is somewhat postmodern, harking back to Jon Sciezka’s The Stinky Cheeseman with its effective variations in font. The combination of Jonsdottir’s and Magnason’s talents results in a story of contrasts: of good versus evil, light vs. dark, innocence vs. corruption, and childhood vs. adulthood. The Story of the Blue Planet is both real and unreal, simple and complex, serious and funny. Above all, Magnason has proved that social and moral criticism is far from obsolete: a children’s book can be provocative and funny, even outrageous, while (as a true fairy tale) inducing the child to contemplate moral values – which have been horrendously distorted by the media and contemporary mass culture.