Soren's Seventh Song - Dave Eggers - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Dave Eggers

ILLUSTRATOR: Mark Hoffmann

GENRE: Children's Fiction.

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A perfect fictional story filled with nonfiction facts about humpback whales. Hits the right *notes* in text, moral, and illustrations.

Story Synopsis:

Soren the teenaged humpback is quite bored of the long and droning whale songs. He decides to write his own music, aiming to make it shorter and more entertaining. He works hard at his song and makes sure he eliminates whatever he doesn’t like about traditional whale songs. But when he performs his new masterpiece before his friends, the reactions aren’t quite what he expected; they hate it! Soren is obviously very disappointed and even angry, but once he has calmed down, he does what all sensible people do: he takes the feedback in the right spirit and tries again.

This beautiful picture book won my heart with its central character. Soren is the cuddliest and sweetest humpback in fiction! I couldn’t help admire his determination to try something new, his acceptance of his friends’ rejection with an open-minded attitude, and his wholehearted joy at even the tiniest of positive reactions. He imbues this story with heart, and his character makes the book worth a pick.

But we don’t buy books only for one reason, right? So here are a few more to tempt you:

🐳 Though a fictional story, the book begins with a nice introduction to humpback whales and their singing. Written in a very light-hearted manner, this note doesn’t feel like we are reading animal facts but like it is a part of the fictional content itself.

🐳 This book highlights friendship in an unusual way. Soren and Hans seem to be opposite in personalities, but this doesn’t come in the way of their connection. Hans is always honest in his feedback to Soren. Some might interpret his answers as being rude, but to me, he felt genuinely straightforward and helpful to his friend. (I felt like he was my fellow spirit when it came to reviewing. 😂)

🐳 Even better than Hans’ honesty is Soren’s response to his friend, which is depicted in a realistic way. Soren gets upset at the rejection of his work, but then he sleeps over it, reflects upon the feedback with a calm mind, and incorporates what he thinks is necessary. This offers a valuable lesson to children on how to accept opinions contrary to our own.

🐳 I also loved Soren’s determination to work on his music until he got it right. Anyone else would have been dejected by repeated rejections, but Soren continues to try and retry. Perseverance and patience are such important traits to learn in today’s world of instant gratification!

🐳 There are some scientific tidbits mixed along with the story. While a few of the words are difficult, there is an easy explanation alongside that makes the whole content manageable to its young readers.

🐳 There are plenty of funny moments in the story. Right from beginning to end, the hilarity is maintained. Some of the humour is quite juvenile. Then again, the book is meant for juvenile readers, so it’s all good. 😊

🐳 The illustrations are oh-so-gorgeous! 😍 I adored the depiction of the underwater world, the whale pod and the other ocean creatures, and most of all, Soren and his musical thingamajigs. Every page was a delight to the eyes!

On the flip side:

⚠ I could have done without the excessive mention of whale vomit. That joke went too far, though it doesn’t look disgusting in the illustrations. (Credit to the illustrator for pulling this off skilfully!)

⚠ The title offers a tiny spoiler, which you won’t realise until you begin the book. I wish it had skipped the number because it tells us in advance how many songs we have to wait for until Soren hits the right melody.

On the whole, the two flip points are relatively insignificant. I adored the story, the lessons, the facts about humpback whales, and the illustrations.

This picture book is meant for slightly older readers and not beginners because of the complexity of its sentence structures, vocabulary, and content. There are only two-three paragraphs on every alternate page, but each para has at least 5-6 lines of text, with some paras being even longer. Hence this book ought to work excellently for readers aged 6-10. (Grades 1-4.)

Definitely recommended if you would like a cute underwater animal story filled with music, humour, honesty in friendship, and learnings.

My thanks to Abrams Books, Cameron Kids, and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “Soren's Seventh Song”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.