Rupa Raises the Sun - Hardcover

Chall, Marsha Wilson; Litzinger, Rosanne

3.5

8 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789424967 ISBN 13: 9780789424969

Publisher: Dk Ink, 1998

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For twenty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty-four mornings, old Rupa has risen from bed to bring up the sun, but when Rupa develops a blister and asks for time off, the elders hold try-outs for a replacement and no one on earth can do Rupa's job.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Rupa, the long-suffering protagonist of this humorous poke at Old World folk tales, has initiated 21,954 sunups and needs a break. Her pre-dawn trips around the "cookfire" bring on the sunrise, and after so many repeat performances she has an oozing blister on her toe. For advice, Rupa visits the three turbaned village wise men, who decide to hold "sun-raising tryouts" to find a suitable stand-in: Can the blacksmith do it, or the goat farmer or baker? In spreads of bulbous-nosed, cartoonish characters with the text set unobtrusively in the upper regions of swirling color backdrops, Chall (Up North at the Cabin) and Litzinger (The Someday House) have come up with a quirky, warmhearted work for sophisticated readers. When weary Rupa takes center stage to rest her bare, swollen foot on the breakfast table where the elders confer?with coffee spilling and eyeballs rolling?readers will share the wise men's consternation. Chall maintains a wry tone, as when the farmer urges his goats to give milk, which he hopes will in turn bring on the dawn: "Isabella, if you please. But she didn't. Hortense couldn't. Camilla wouldn't. No sun, no milk." The elders' superstitious suggestion that Rupa walk around her cookfire backward to keep the sun from setting will have readers chuckling, as will Litzinger's drawing of the many stages of Rupa's dutiful orbit around the flames. While some children may find the tale confusing, its message will resonate with adults: the world goes 'round, with or without them. Ages 3-6.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A tale with more atmosphere than purpose, about mistaking post hoc events for genuine cause and effect. Morning after morning, in the dark and cold, while the baker and blacksmith are still asleep, Rupa gets up to stomp around her fire and make the sun rise. One morning, ``with a great blister on her foot and greater frost on her mustache,'' she feels the weight of her burden and shuffles off to the village elders to ask for a respite from her duty. They decide to hold tryouts for a stand-in, but neither smithy, nor baker, nor farmer can do the job, and Rupa must call the sun forth once more. After the elders ask Rupa to walk backwards around the fire to keep the sun in its heaven until she is betterit doesn't workthey agree she can take a few days off: ``The sun won't rise on time, but we could all use the extra rest.'' The next day, as Rupa snoozes, the sun rises in the east. Everyone is pleased. Litzinger's fine and funny paintings show another time, but the labor complaints Rupa takes to management seem to fit this century. Readers may chortle over their inside knowledge of sunrises and sunsets; they also may be puzzled by the point of the story: Rupa, hitherto so responsible and so valued by the village, looks like a useless old fool, the butt of a bad joke. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright �1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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