The Asian Reporter's
BOOK REVIEWS

 Left, the book cover. Right, Willie defends his alkansiya when Stan calls it a "loser’s bank."

Willie doesn’t quite win

By Almira Astudillo Gilles

Illustrated by Carl Angel

Lee and Low Books, 2001

Hardcover, 28 pages, $16.00

By Josephine Bridges

When Willie strikes out in the last inning of a Little League game, his father tries to distract him with a story of how he and his friends played baseball "with bamboo bats and a rolled-up sock." Willie doesn’t want to hear his father’s stories of the Philippines. When the boy discovers a note from his teacher in his backpack and remembers that he has to take a bank to school the next day, a bad day gets even worse. But Willie’s father has an unusual bank for his son, and this bank, called an alkansiya, is the best part of Willie Wins.

Willie’s alkansiya is made from a coconut shell. There’s a slot for money and a tiny hole for ants. "They crawl in, and after they’ve eaten all the coconut meat they crawl out," Willie’s father explains. The alkansiya is "sneak-proof" because it has to be cracked to get the money out. Best of all, there’s something special inside it already.

Willie has mixed feelings about his bank, but he defends it when Stan, who seems to live to harass Willie, says it’s "just a dusty shell." And he works hard all month, putting his play money rewards into the alkansiya. At the end of the month, the student with the most play money wins tickets to the circus. It’s no surprise that Willie wins, but the treasure is a surprise that impresses even Stan, and boosts Willie’s confidence.

Willie Wins isn’t a bad book, but Willie is a prickly character, hard to relate to, and that puts this book at a distance from its readers. The illustrations are unusual in that they don’t portray attractive characters, and in some unsettling examples make the protagonist look downright unpleasant. Most unfortunate, the audience is narrowed by the lack of any significant female characters. But boys aged four and up, especially those with an interest in baseball or the Philippines, may find something here that this reviewer couldn’t find. I hope so.

 

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