Flight of the Hummingbird
August 20th, 2008Book: “Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment,” Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, with Wangari Maathai and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Greystone, 2008. Another lovely free book through Mini Book Expo for Bloggers.
The story “Flight of the Hummingbird” itself is very short, and the entire contents can be viewed as an animated short film. It tells the story of a forest fire, that all of the animals flee, except for one hummingbird who attempts to quench it one drop of water at a time. While it appears that she can’t have much impact on the entire situation, the attitude “I am doing what I can” is the only one by which anything can be accomplished.
The artwork for this volume is beautiful. Again, samples can be seen in the animation, but Yahgulanaas’ style is just perfect, and I’d definitely look for more of his work. The book itself is small and the printing and binding are of high quality.
The real content, of course, is in the “additional matter,” with a foreword by Wangari Maathai and an afterword by the Dalai Lama. Again, these are very short writings, but they pack in the essential message.
A pleasure to read, and I’ll shortly be passing it along to others.