Shadows and Light: The White Hare

It’s a little puzzling why the white hare of the title, so vividly portrayed on the cover of this book, doesn’t appear in the narrative until the 26th of the 29 pages of the story (which, incidentally, begins on page 6). The only hint of the hare’s existence is through illustration in several double spreads – which seem to be ‘padding out’ the book. Not that the pictures are at fault; they are well-drawn watercolours of landscapes and natural creatures, but they are not actually integrated into the text and therefore not helpful to the reader. This said, the text is well presented, and well written, with some charming evocations of the heroine Ostra’s work patterns creating crab pots by moonlight, or responding with empathy to the needs of the small creatures who visit her nightly, with promises of rewards to come. The appearance of a handsome huntsman (and with a name like Wolvas, he’s surely a villain in disguise!) seeking her hand in marriage brings warnings from the nightly visitors and repeated family misfortunes. Just at the moment when all seems lost and Ostra is about to succumb to Wolvas’ evil intentions, “a beautiful brown hare popped his head out of the undergrowth” to warn her, all the little creatures gathered like a tide round the villain’s neck (and presumably pecked and bit him to death), as Ostra hopped away, changing into the eponymous white hare, as she did so. So ends the tale – and gives way to eight pages of information – biographical details on the author and the illustrator, descriptions of the three other books in the series, and a list of Graffeg children’s books. There is a little magic here, with talking birds and shape-shifting , and a few shivers in the behaviour of the savage wooer – but hardly enough, page-on-page, to satisfy the hungry young reader. -- Chris Stevens @ www.gwales.com