The Unique You

Persistence really pays off. This is what I thought when I found this another piece of treasure in a book sale a few months ago. The book is entitled The Mixed-up Chameleon, which was written and illustrated by Eric Carle. When I had a first glimpse of the book it really catches my eye because Carle has a unique way of illustrating his own stories. I easily recognized the distinctive collage technique of Eric Carle and so I grabbed this little book from the shelf and look for its price. The usual price of Carle's books ranges from 250php – 1000+php that is why I was a bit shocked to discover (even if it was in a book sale) that they sell it for only 15php (can you believe that?), not to mention that it was in a good condition. That is like paying for only 5% of the actual price of the book.

What is best about this book is the lesson, which the story implied. The Mixed-up Chameleon is about an ordinary chameleon who felt that its life is not very exciting and so it wished to be different kinds of animals and turned out to be a hilarious mixed-up of every animal it saw. In the end, finally realizing its own worth, the chameleon wishes to be just itself which is a chameleon contented to eat its favorite food – the fly.

We are beautiful in our own unique way. It is not hard to figure out the message of the story and I love this book for that. I love how Eric Carle used the chameleon as the main character of the story. It just like a chameleon, people also tend to change themselves based on their environment just to feel accepted. In fact, we have our own distinct characteristic that stands out among the rest. The way how the value of self-acceptance is integrated in the story is wisely done by the author. I personally enjoyed the flow of the story and it was also fun to see the transformation of the chameleon as it became mixed-up of different animals it wishes to be. At the end of the story is really satisfying and it is quite touching as well. 

According to Eric Carle The Mixed-up Chameleon has a lot of co-authors. At the last page of the book Mr. Carle retold the cute story of how the Mixed-up Chameleon was born. He said that when he visited many schools in the different parts of U.S. and Europe, he was asked by the children to illustrate various animals but the kids became too excited that there is no time to finish a single animal. Only the basic characteristics of different animals were made. These parts were pasted together and the idea of a story about a mixed-up animal occurred to him.  

I really like how Eric Carle makes his books. As a well known author-artist of children’s books he has always been consistent in creating books that do not just impress the readers for its story but also amazed them through the unique artistic sense of the illustrations he personally made.