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Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite
The Adventures of Fugaru by Raji Abuzalaf is a story about a young boy, disfigured and alone, and how he makes his way in the world, eventually traveling to and living in the Secluded Forest. Fugaru is a very unlikely hero. He's skinny, disfigured because of the fire that killed his parents, and the other children call him a monster. He escapes their cruelty by living alone in the forest. Each chapter is almost a different story, kind of "Parables of Fugaru." His adventures all have morals to the story and involve some kind of battle of doing what is right or wrong. I liked that you had such a variety of stories and you kind of "grew up" right along with Fugaru. You feel for him and his journey. While each chapter or episode is relatively short, they all tell a story and it's a story that many kids would want to hear.
One thing I thought was extremely cool and added that little bit of extra OOMPH to the Fugaru stories, was that the book includes a link to an original song that you can listen to. Each song is relevant to the chapter that you just read and includes elements of the story. I love how different types of media are used to engage the kids. Multi-media experiences can be essential to keeping the attention of ever tech-savvy young kids who would be reading this story on their e-readers. That was a definite bonus and the songs themselves were pretty good too!
