David Weitzman, author and illustrator,
Rama and Sita: A Tale from Ancient Java.
David R. Godine, 2002.

Rama and Sita is a handsome book, elegant and lush in its illustrations. It is a retelling of an ancient Javanese story that would have been enacted by traditional puppets, which David Weitzman has used for models in his drawings. The story is bookended by an explanation of the way such a tale would unfold if told by a puppeteer. “So the dalang, the story teller, lovingly sets out his golden puppets in the way it was done by his father and father's father. In his hands each little figure comes alive in fluttering shadows on a white cloth lit by an oil lamp sun.”

Rama and Sita, a prince and his wife, are sent into exile with Rama's brother Lesmana in a forest where dangers lurk. Soon a giant, Ravana, with ten heads and twenty arms comes to kidnap the lovely Sita after deceiving Rama and Lesmana into leaving Sita alone and unattended. Sita is spirited away by the evil giant. Rama and Lesmana pursue the giant and, with the assistance of some magnificent animal warriors such as Jathayu, King of the Birds, and Hanuman, the Monkey King, Sita is rescued and Ravana destroyed. Triumphant in their victory, the prince and his wife return to the kingdom from which they have been exiled to be welcomed back as rightful ruler and heir to the land.

This story of the prince and his wife, gleaned from the Hindu epic, The Ramayana, is enriched with beautiful, grotesque and unusual characters. Rich colors — gold, reds, and blues — are woven in and amongst stark silhouettes of black. The puppet-like quality of the characters, as well as their distinctive appearance, has been maintained in the illustrations. This is a gorgeous book to look at.

My only complaint about the story is one confusing section where a dialogue is depicted on facing pages. Normally, one reads text on one page completely before reading the text on the next page, but Mr. Weitzman has set up the dialogue so that the first speaker's text is read on one page and the response is on the opposite page. The reader has to go back to the first page to pick up the next line of dialogue and so forth. This was genuinely confusing and as I tried to read it aloud to my child the first time, I got mixed up. However, this is a minor textual aberration in an otherwise finely told tale, superbly illustrated.

Maya Wilson