REVIEW: The Yeti Files
The Yeti Files: Meet the Bigfeet
By Kevin Sherry
Scholastic Press, 122 pages, $8.99
Yetis are one of the most persistent legends around the globe and we covered more than our fair share of such stories at Weekly World News. They are also perfect material for a children’s book. Kevin Sherry, a veteran storyteller, explores the nature of Yeti life in The Yeti Files.
Apparently, Yeti are secretive on purpose so when a Yeti named Brian is glimpsed, he goes into hiding. This prompts his cousin Blizz Richards to go in search of him, propelling a story about family and acceptance among other species. We meet a variety of cyptids all drawn in a style making them non-threatening to the young readers this volume is aimed at.
Blizz’s narration gives us the inside scoop on crypitds, large and small, while being amusing. What’s odd is that cryptids apparently do everything humans do: eat too much, use the Internet, and have family reunions. There’s little unique here about their culture other than their desire to remain hidden from view. Hoping to change that is George Vanquist, self-proclaimed cyptozoologist, but as Buzz describes him, is actually clueless. He’s in search of Brian or his family and threatens to find the family reunion, requiring some ingenuity from the Yeti collective.
As threats go, Vanquist is more a bumbling one, there to provide comic relief but is actually so inept and dumb it detracts from a stronger story.
Sherry’s writing and artwork is appealing and this should be a gentle way to introduce young readers into the larger worlds of creatures sand fantasy.