The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
By: Kate DiCamillo / Narrated By: Judith Ivey
Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
Best. Book. EVER…!
Okay, okay. Maybe I’ve listened to other great books, but really: If you’re not crying by the time you reach the end of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, or feeling boundless love and hope in your very own life? Well then you, my friend, have no heart, and you’re no fellow Accomplice of mine (Anyone notice that we’re all about fuzzy and non-fuzzy Friends here? Just pointing it out).
Cuz yes, this is a TOTAL journey. It’s a wandering of the mind, a wandering of the soul, a true and loving wandering of a heart.
Edward Tulane is a mostly china rabbit (Tho’ he does have furry ears that one can pose), and his creation was commissioned by the grandmother of a young girl. The young girl adores Edward, but Edward adores only himself. Then the grandmother tells a tale of a princess with an unloving heart who meets her end in an ignominious fashion, and that’s that. What? the young girl asks: There’s no Happy Ending?
Apparently, for the unloving, there isn’t. And grandmother KNOWS that Edward doesn’t love and honor like he should.
Enter a tragic mishap that sends Edward to the bottom of the sea where he feels his first emotion: Fear. And after almost a year of the nothingness of endless water, the ceaseless rolling of the waves, a storm strikes, buffeting him from the ocean’s floor, and Edward is scooped up by a fisherman’s net.
The book is the story of the people who come across Edward, the people (And one dog!) Edward comes to, yes, love.
But it’s no easy journey. To each relationship there is a seemingly inevitable and devastating end. With each parting, though Edward knows he’s been loved and has loved well, his newfound heart breaks a bit, then a bit more, then by the time he comes to be with a very ill 4-year old girl, that ending proves to be just too much. When Edward is placed in a doll mender’s shop, he’s had it with love. He’s had it with constellations; he’s had it with the beauty of the stars. There is no place for beauty and love, not if it means pain. Edward is done with that, and he tells it to the over 100-year old doll next to him who tell him there is excitement in the next person to love. He is bitter and, though he’s been mended, he is broken.
Each step of the way, you’ll feel a piece of your heart melt and grow—which is an odd combination, but I SWEAR to you it’s so. You’ll understand companionship; you’ll understand how love grows and how it can come to be relied upon, much to our eventual grief.
This is a story of initial hubris and of Life, if we’re doing it right, bringing us to our knees. It’s filled with sooo much pain. But that only makes the brilliance of the writing at the end shine all the brighter. As Edward’s heart begins to beat again, slowly, ever so slowly, then faster, then faster again, so too will you feel your own heart crying out: I want to live; I want to love.
Add to that some pretty spectacular narration, which I wasn’t so sure about at the beginning (Judith Ivey’s voice seemed odd as she portrayed the grandmother, but soon she was tackling each and every oh so wonderful character), and you have that rarest of things: The ROCKIN’ audiobook that’ll make you cry even as you laugh yourself helpless.
Got an hour and fifty-five minutes? Give Edward and his journey a go. That’s it: Change your life…
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