The Great Snake: Stories from the Amazon

by Sean Taylor, Fernando Vilela (Illustrations)

As the Rio Afuá ferry wends its way along the Amazon, Sean Taylor takes in not only the sights and sounds of this extraordinary landscape but also the stories of the people he meets. From sly jaguars and the slowest of sloths to spine-tingling giant serpents and white-suited strangers, his retellings teem with legendary beings, vivid color, earthy comedy, and the mysteries of the rainforest. Together, with Fernando Vilela’s dramatic, color-saturated illustrations, they reveal the Amazon peoples' beliefs and way of life. Notes and a glossary provide additional information about the region.

Genres: Brazil, Childrens, Picture Books, Short Stories, Mythology

64 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Sean Taylor started writing poetry as a teenager. In 1993, he came across a newspaper article which reported that a goat slaughtered in Iran had been found to have teeth made of gold. He tried writing a story for children. It was called 'The Goat with the Golden Teeth' and it won second prize in a competition run by the British newspaper 'The Independent' and Scholastic Children's Books. Since then, Sean has focussed on writing for children and has published over forty books for young readers of different ages. As well as writing, he has many years’ experience visiting schools, where he works with poetry and storytelling to encourage young people to write themselves. He lives partly in England (where he was born) and partly in Brazil( where his wife is from.)

Reviews

[Ardyth]

I spend a lot of time reading "global awareness" / "world culture" books for children, and reviewing them here. If you've read any of those reviews, you've probably noticed a fairly common theme: I don't believe that only a person *from* a given culture has the right to write about it, but I do believe most of the time this kind of writing about The Other is done poorly. It's too often inconsistent, or the tone feels strange, or it (unintentionally?) gives children the idea that everyone who lives overseas is in terrible straits -- poor, poor dears. Super frustrating.

So I'm very pleased to tell you that this book is absolutely an exception to the rule, and that reading it has given me the words to express what differentiates this work done well. Huzzah!

Fundamentally, it comes down to centering the culture in question rather than centering oneself -- in the case of books, that's the author. Too many collections, retellings and whatnot concentrate to show off the writer's creativity (looking at you, Tomie de Paola) at the expense of representing the culture in a living, breathing way.

Taylor, on the other hand, is a master at centering the culture. This collection of nine stories is carefully, but briefly and engagingly, cited both within the body of the book and in a brief appendix. He wraps his citations and framing of stories in a vivid description of travelling down the Amazon. Consider:

The sun set over the forest several hours ago and I am sitting at the front of the Rio Afua as we push on through the night air. Around me, the forest is like a great bowl of darkness. But the night is not all dark. I can see a swarm of stars above me and the moon just over the branches of the trees. Every now and then an explosion of lightning, far across the forest, punches one side of the sky full of light.

At the front of the boat, a searchlight scans the water for sandbanks, and floating tree-trunks. Occasionally another boat's light appears and disappears upstream. And, where the river meets the forest, there are hundreds and thousands of fireflies winking tiny, green-white dots of light.

There is an old ship's welder on board called Senhor Jose de Deus. During the day some of us were sitting at the front of the Rio Afua, enjoying the breeze coming in off the river, and Senhor Jose de Deus started telling a story. It was about a character who is half-woman, half-fish -- an Amazon mermaid. In Portuguese she is known as the Mae d'Agua, which means 'Mother of the Water'. This is the story Senhor Jose de Deus told...

How can a kid not fall into that world?

The appendix, "About the Stories", includes this additional entry on The Mother of the Water:

The Mother of the Water, or Iara, as she is sometimes known, features in many Amazon stories. In some of these, a young man is spellbound by her beauty and dives into the river to find her. Then he disappears or drowns. In others, like the story in this book, the Mother of the Water appears on land. Both Senhor Efrem Galvao in Santarem and Dona Colo in Freguesia told me about actual encounters with the Mother of the Water. I heard Senhor Jose de Deus tell this story as we travelled on the Rio Afua.

Credited with care beyond the norm.

Taylor is honest about his compilation as well. From the appendix:

These are not *the* stories from the Amazon. They are just a handful of stories I have come across while travelling through a small part of the huge forest. I found some of them in books and heard others told by storytellers. I have rewritten them in my language and in my own way.

Twas ever thus, with stories and storytellers. It's simply refreshing to find someone who holds the source material in such high regard that communicating those sources to the reader is baked in to the story itself.

Taylor was ahead of his time. He may even be ahead of our time, twelve years later!

Writers of kid lit: you could do worse for a guide on how to create that global awareness book.

Everyone else: I think you'll enjoy this journey immensely.

[Francesca Forrest]

Beautiful book--a sensitive sharing of stories told along the Amazon river, neatly contextualized by the author and beautifully illustrated. I read it as a library book but may buy a copy.

[Robin]

A fascinating collection of nine stories that are interwoven with factual details of the author's travels through the Amazon. This inclusion sets the stories in context, and makes the book work as nonfiction as well -- it conveys a wonderful sense of place, with descriptions of flora, fauna, smells, and the environment of the rain forest. Taylor's source notes are a joy, listing the individual from whom he heard the story, the place, and often other versions. An endnote from the author explains the current destruction of the rain forest and the risks this environment is facing. The only thing I really would have liked was a map of the locations mentioned.

Taylor has visited the rainforest multiple times and is married to a Brazilian. Illustrator Vilela lives in Brazil and has won awards from the Brazilian branch of IBBY. Villela's woodcut and print illustrations wonderfully complement the text, often weaving around it and enclosing or becoming part of the story.

[Chris Lynch]

A nice collection of fables from the Amazon, interspersed with the story of the author travelling up the river in search of old-timers with stories. Simple but effective wood-cut pictures accompany the text.

Written for children, but enjoyable for adults. I love the opening quote:

"Come with me into the damp thickness.
The forest already knows someone has arrived
and all its many greens shift, wanting to know who it is."
-- Thiago de Mello

[Samanda]

Boa leitura!

[Brittany]

A really great collection of folk tales from the Amazon. The author talks about his travels and the storytellers he meets between each story, which helps me imagine the real rainforest along with the imaginary one in the stories.