When Poke Woke

Cute Story But Kindle Version Almost Impossible to Read

I rented this book on Kindle Unlimited and it was very nearly unreadable on both the Android app and the desktop Kindle reader. The images don't even take up the full pages and cannot be zoomed, which means not only is the text - which is part of the imagery - impossible to comfortably read, but the story couldn't properly be shared with a child. How can the kid see when the adult reading to them has to shove the device so close to their face? I basically had to go cross-eyed and hold my phone to my face so closely my nose touched on occasion just to read it, and even then my eyes ached by the end.

As for the content, when you can actually see it? Well, the art is gorgeous. It's cute and fun and could easily keep the attention of a child who'd likely enjoy finding the little things like a snail in the picture watching the main characters. I'd rate this book five stars if it were primarily a picture book and it didn't have formatting issues in the Kindle version.

The story, however, is kind of weak in my opinion. Poke the hedgehog is talked down to and belittled by his friends for being different - so often that he starts to exhibit what appear to be symptoms of depression (curling up to sleep in a ball while sad). He desperately tries to be ‘better' by learning how to react to fear in the same way as his friends, but they taunt and degrade him for his efforts. He finally just kind of gives up and withdraws, which leaves him in a safer place when his friends are cornered by a dog. Poke uses his quills to fend off the dog, and suddenly his friends appreciate him... sort of. At the end, they're still teasing him about his physical differences when he tries to play a game of tag and they say they couldn't tag him back because of his quills.

There's no true resolution and no message beyond being glad of what makes someone seem like a weirdo to you if it saves your life - or trying to find ways to make your differences useful to others in order to gain a bit of token acceptance. It just didn't feel like much of a moral to me, and I think - at least in my experience with the book - it missed the mark a bit on what it's hoping to accomplish.

A decent book if you get a print copy, though you shouldn't expect it to teach any life lessons. A waste of money if you get the kindle edition.