The Story

I knew the poem "The Story" from another collection of poetry. But it is still nice to have the book "The Story"!

.....We are told on the first page of "THE STORY". Children are given forty days of dreams of previous lives and then "the past is erased". This is a beautifully written and illustrated little book that teases out questions and follows with elegiac whispers of the memories, the histories that were present before the maps were buried. The poem takes us to a place we have already been trained to enter and conquer, only any projection past that point is unknown..... thus at the end we are left to reflect and wonder.....and hope for our future. Michael Ondaatje magically takes the reader into his hands and transports him gently through his poem in a dreamlike haze. This lovely little book would make a wonderful gift and knowing that all royalties go directly to a fundraising project for World Literacy of Canada is an added bonus!