Moletown

by Torben Kuhlmann

Overview

A 2015 Foreword INDIES finalist in Picture Books (Children's)

"Kuhlmann’s detailed art will pull in readers who like to see how things fit together, while his message is abundantly clear for everyone." –Kirkus Reviews

Torben Kulhmann's stunningly illustrated, nearly wordless tale offers a fascinating window into an imaginary, yet hauntingly familiar world under our feet, where a mole suddenly recognizes the precarious balance between progress and preservation. Kulhmann's open ended text encourages thoughtful exploration into possible solutions, and his delightful endpapers depict a montage of solutions that could very well save the moles' world and ours.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735842083
Publisher:	NorthSouth Books
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD450L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Torben Kuhlmann lives and works in Hamburg as a freelance children’s author and illustrator. He studied illustration and communications design at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. He wrote and illustrated his first picture book, Lindbergh: the Tale of a Flying Mouse, in 2012 as his final thesis, and it was published in 2014 by NordSüd Verlag. It quickly became a bestseller and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Three more mouse adventures followed and were equally successful. In 2024, the tenth anniversary was celebrated by the publication of Earhart, the fifth book in the series. However, a few mouse-free books have also crept into the repertoire during the last ten years, including Moletown, The Clown Said No, and The Gray City.

Editorial Reviews

07/20/2015
Kuhlmann follows his sprightly debut, Lindbergh (2014), with a somber social commentary, some of whose significance will be grasped only by older readers. In 15 cutaway spreads of life underground, he depicts the rise and fall of a civilization of moles. A single mole settles under an idyllic daisy-studded meadow and digs for coal. The coal-mining operation takes off, attracting mole immigrants who arrive with suitcases and headscarves and live in tenements illuminated with bare light bulbs. Massive industrial growth with ever-larger mining machinery culminates in a metropolis glittering with lights and choked with traffic. The story’s most poignant scene is a cross-section of the now-prosperous but lonely moles sitting in rooms crammed with enormous speakers, cathode-ray tube TVs, and rotary telephone assemblies. “Many generations later,” Kuhlmann concludes, “the moles’ green meadow had completely disappeared. Almost.” The final page hints at a solution. Even if younger readers don’t fully understand the allegory, they will be transfixed by the gracefully drafted and soberly colored paintings of the moles, their intricately engineered machines, and their exhausted, poorly-lit world. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

*Starred Review: "Kuhlmann’s meticulous, precise illustrations are the star of this nearly wordless book, and each realistic spread of expanding modernization reveals an enormous amount of detail and evokes deep emotion. A poignant picture book with an unmistakable message and gorgeous, mesmerizing artwork."- Sarah Hunter, Booklist

From the Publisher

★ 11/01/2015
K-Gr 3—In this mostly wordless allegory, a mole moves into a verdant field. Soon, more moles join him, each new page depicting an expanding underground civilization. As time goes by, increasingly advanced digging machinery enlarges the moles' domain, creating a bustling metropolis but progressively destroying and polluting the meadow above until there is only a small patch of green in the glum industrial landscape. Front endpapers feature "History of Moletown"—black-and-white "photos" with allusions to iconic historical photographs such as "Lunch atop a Skyscraper"—while back endpapers include photos of the moles' efforts to preserve what's left of the environment. Kuhlmann's spreads masterfully play with shifts in perspective. Vignettes of moles in their burrows alternate with scenes of larger scope, such as the dizzying view of spiral scaffolding in a deep tunnel or an expansive urban intersection reminiscent of Times Square. VERDICT A poignant statement about the spread of civilization resulting in the destruction of nature, thought-provoking and unique.—Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY

School Library Journal

2015-07-15
The evolution of a city built beneath a green meadow by anthropomorphic moles is narrated visually. The industrious moles build their elaborate, busy civilization without paying much attention to the natural world—with predictably bad consequences—in a largely wordless allegory about the downside of progress. Kuhlmann's art for the underground city is richly done in earthy tones, with the gray-blue of the moles' coveralls and the glow of lamps, screens, and lightbulbs punctuating the sense of being constantly indoors, electricity in use everywhere. Bits of telephones and gaming handsets decorate the moles' compact living and working spaces. Underground trains ferry commuters in all directions, including up and down. The city's development proceeds to the point where vehicles packed end to end crowd the square of a heavily stacked city as mole-oriented signage looms over the streets: "smutch," "sand," "soil." The devastation that has been wrought on the surface above them appears in a double-page spread just after this: the formerly green meadow is a wasteland of derricks and piles of bare earth. It's only on the rear endpapers that hope appears, with thumbnail black-and-white "photos" showing a wind farm rising above the bare-dirt meadow and a mole enjoying a bit of fresh air. Kuhlmann's detailed art will pull in readers who like to see how things fit together, while his message is abundantly clear for everyone. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews