Something I discovered when embarking on this task was that having a reasonable command of the English language and being a parent and grand-parent doesn’t give one all the skills and insight necessary to deal with reviewing a book meant for children. As one beyond the Biblical three-score-and-ten year span, this reviewer was faced with a dilemma: try to view this book from the perspective of a child or bring what life experience has given one as a parent and grand-parent to bear on the content.

That said, let me try to give Prashan Thalayasingham’s little gem the attention it deserves, without revealing too much of the storyline and, thereby, spoiling it for those who will, ultimately, be its readers.

The story captures the innocence and trusting nature of childhood and suggests, to this reader at least, that that trusting and innocence has a real and enduring place in the adult world.

The story is primarily one of a relationship between a butterfly, Leah, and a turtle, Tao, from their disparate beginnings to their growing maturity and unlikely friendship. It takes the reader through their birth throes to the impact that the 2004 Tsunami has on their lives and the lives of those around them. While that cataclysmic event is captured succinctly by Thalayasingham, he, probably more cleverly, captures the more humdrum events in the lives of the protagonists in a manner that puts their importance in context without overly dramatizing them. The ability to write, as Hemingway suggested, "without using $10 dollar words," is something that can never be over-valued, particularly in a Sri Lanka where the use of superlatives and bombast has become the rule and not the unfortunate exception.

Prashan has fleshed out his cast of characters with other creatures who provide a diversity that the plot might otherwise have missed.

Thalayasingham’s story appears to carry an underlying message that needs to be conveyed to the young, the old and the in-between: the need for unconditional love and acceptance of difference and different beings, be they the turtles of the ocean or the butterflies of the air. The skill that the author brings to this thesis is most impressive because he conveys it with subtlety and grace and without any suggestion of "preachiness."

I would venture to suggest that this little fable is appropriate for virtually anyone, from those who need to be read to because they have not yet learned the skill to those who need to be read to by virtue of their advancing years having enfeebled them.

I look forward to reading more of Prashan Thalayasingham’s work, irrespective of the genre, because he projects a combination of basic humanity and perceptiveness that is a rare commodity in our increasingly cynical and bitter world. One little word of advice though: a good proof-reader prior to going to print might help avoid some of the little errors that would, in a lesser effort, not be noticed.

Published by Bay Owl Press, an imprint of Perera Hussein Publishing House. www.ph-book.com

By a talky, roundabout route, Dahl slyly (if deterringly) takes the narrator - ostensibly himself at seven - into the delicious, ambiguous situation of being a mouse-boy. . . who turns the tables on his tormentors.

We first hear about witches: they spend their time plotting to get rid of children, "they all look like nice ladies," they are difficult but not impossible to spot. Then, we hear about Dahl’s cigar-smoking Norwegian grandmother, who told him about witches and how to spot them: they all wear wigs to cover their bald heads, for one thing, and have itchy scalps. So, when Dahl and his grandmother are at a Bournemouth hotel, and the lady-delegates to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children conference start scratching away (p. 57), Dahl is wary.

Then the pretty head lady takes off her mask: the Grand High Witch incarnate! To demonstrate her Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, she’s already fed some to greedy, obnoxious little Bruno Jenkins - who turns into a mouse on schedule. Will Dahl be detected, hiding behind a screen? He hasn’t washed in days, but some of that tell-tale child-scent, anathema to witches, escapes. Forcefed the potion, he joins Bruno scampering about the floor - but they still have their own voices, and his wonderful witchophile grandmother will know what to do.

Actually, Dahl’s wits have if anything sharpened. With his grandmother as a confederate, he steals a bottle of the potion; pours it into the witch-delegates’ soup tureen; and has the exquisite pleasure of seeing them turned into mice, to be wiped out on the spot. (Bruno meanwhile is contentedly munching away - to the horror of his mouse-hating parents.) When last seen, DaM and his grandmother are quietly resettled in Norway - where he wonders if she’ll live out Ms short mouse-life span, and she’s plotting to get rid of the world’s remaining witches. A (quicker-acting) sequel is to be eagerly expected.