Ling Cho and his Three Friends - Hardcover

V. J. Pacilio lives in Wilmette, Illinois. This is his first book.

Scott Cook has illustrated many books, including Nancy Van Laan's With a Whoop and a Holler. He lives on Cape Cod.

Grade 2-4-Despite its elements of creativity, this story of true friendship suffers from a tedious poetic narrative that detracts immeasurably from its presentation and its message. Ling Cho, a prosperous Chinese farmer, has three friends who have inherited farms with soil so poor that they can barely grow enough to feed their families. In one particular year of abundance, he decides to help them by allowing them to sell his surplus wheat and split the profit with him. All three men return empty-handed, but only one is honest about his family's need for the wheat, and Ling Cho rewards him with a business proposition that will ensure that the man's family will never go hungry again. The lesson: "A man who will allow his friends to help in time of need/Is-more than even he who gives-a valued friend, indeed." An even greater lesson relating to honesty is implied in the conclusion, but never mentioned. The author's use of rhymed couplets results in a forced wordiness that makes it difficult to concentrate on the plot-especially on the telling of the friends' tales of woe and on the story's conclusion. The droll personalities of the four main characters shown in Cook's imaginative, richly textured, earth-toned paintings are, unfortunately, not mirrored in the text. There are many better stories about friendship.
Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
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