A stranger enters a mountain village and promises to make the wishes of its people come true. In return, he asks permission to cut trees from their mountains. One child gets his wish to eat all the lovely looking stars. What happens when all the stars and all the trees are gone?
Alfred Yuson has authored 23 books, including novels, poetry collections, short fiction, essays, and children's stories, apart from having edited various other titles. Yuson was conferred the Southeast Asia Write Award (SEA Write) in 1992 in Bangkok, and has been elevated to the Hall of Fame of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Philippines ‘ most prestigious literary distinction. He has frequently represented the Philippines in Literary conferences, festivals and reading tours in the United States, Japan, China, Finland, Scotland, Thailand, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Columbia, and his works may be found in many international anthologies.
Yuson is a founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC), Creative Writing Foundation, Inc. and Manila Critics Circle, and was Chairman of Writers Union of the Philippines . His bibliography includes the potry collections: Sea Serpent, (Monsoon Press, 1980), Trading in Mermaids (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1993), Mothers Like Elephants (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2000) Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woman (University of the Philippines Press, 2002), and the translation, Love's A Vice/ Bisyo ang Pag-ibig: Translations into English of 60 Poems by mike L. Birgonia (National Commission for Culture at the Arts, 2004). Yuson currently writes a literature and culture column for The Philippines Star. He also teaches fiction and poetry at Ateneo de Manila University, where he held the Henry Lee Irwin Professorial Chair in Creative Writing. His two novels, The Great Philippine Jungle Café and Voyeurs and Savages are studies of Philippine culture. Another novel, The Music Child, was among five works short listed for the second (2008) Man Asian Literary Prize.
I picked this up off the free shelf at the library, thinking it was a children's chapter book. After I realized it was about an autistic boy, I decided to read it myself. It offered what I thought to be an easy to understand example of an autistic child and I may keep the book to reference in the future in case my children have questions re: the subject matter. Very quick read.
Krip Yuson's tale echoes Mahatma Gandhi's "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." Beth Parrocha's art works are amazing!