Liberty!

Based on the 2002 picture book written and illustrated by Alan Drummond, Liberty! takes young viewers back in time to October 28, 1886, the day that President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France--overseen by sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi--to the American people. Combining iconographic animation of pen-and-wash illustrations and narration by Asa Dorfman, the story is related by a nameless boy whose job it is to signal Bartholdi to drop the veil from Liberty's face. Offering up an impressionistic history of the construction of the statue (in a series of little more than verbal photo captions, regarding the iron skeleton, copper panels, finishing touches on the flame, addition of stairs, etc.), and portrait of the crowds gathered at the New York harbor to witness the dedication (a ship of arriving immigrants, a boat full of suffragettes asking when it will it be women's turn for liberty, teeming crowds on the docks, etc.), this short piece concludes with some boilerplate American patriotism. Unfortunately, the animation is exceptionally static (even for an iconographic film), the simple illustrations are not especially vibrant, and most of the details of this historic event are left out (such as the dedication date, the fact that Cleveland was president, or even any mention of Emma Lazarus' stirring invocation inscribed on the statue to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"). An optional purchase, at best. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)