The Books

The Simple People

by Tedd Arnold
Illustrated by Arnold Shachat

One Potato Review

A modest environmental fable that nevertheless attempts to understand what so many more complicated productions – with splashier illustrations, and pedigreed agendas – are content to chalk up to pure avarice: namely, the business of building as hypnotic, rewarding, and sometimes inspired, even as all of the evidence mounts that it probably won’t end up well. Here the construction begins with a window, or “look-through thing,” whose temptations derive from a world that is possibly too vast and too bountiful to appreciate without a little framing, then also as something to plan around and elaborate, and finally for the noise of the wind blowing through it – “Oh-h-h-h-h” – which these little ur-builders end up forgetting until it’s almost too late. Simple and timely, though seventeen years old.