When the rains regularly wash away all the mud houses in a village, an alliance between the youngest and the oldest, who has the wisdom and time to listen to the youngest, fuels beneficial change. Underscoring the importance of questioning "the way it has always been," this picture book's value lies in its overall message. Cartoon illustrations of look-alike villagers in grass skirts and the boy's name, Little Tomba, undercut the book's effectiveness, though, by drawing on stereotypes of "primitive" people to represent the unspecified time, place and people typical in folk tales and, perhaps, typical at the time of this book's publication.