The Hunt for the Whistle: A Cleft Adventure product reviews

Cleft NZ and Huia Publications have teamed up to create this lovely little picture book, featuring a young lad who was born with a cleft. In case you were unaware, a cleft can affect the lip and/or the palate in utero and requires surgery/ies as well as the possibility of there being an effect on their speech etc.

Ollie is a young lad, who loves to play football but tends to get ignored and overlooked because the other kids have trouble understanding his words. Along comes new teammate Aria, who loves to whistle to the birds and when he expresses how he wants to talk more and lead more she lets him know that sometimes people need to slow down and listen. When the coaches whistle goes missing and a few other mysteries happen, Ollie finally has a chance to lead the team, to figure out the mystery and most importantly, be listened to.

I really liked the illustrations and am so happy that they kept it set in NZ, with our birds and trees. Whilst the main character may have a cleft, this story is good enough that any child can read and enjoy the story of the missing whistle. It's also just a good, general, lesson that sometimes you need to slow yourself down, listen to others and make sure that you are giving them your attention. My child (whom I bought this for and was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate) is now thirteen and I wish this book had been around when they were younger, as representation matters and they would have loved having a book with a main character like themselves.

A great book to own if you have your own cleftastic family member, and a great book if you want a fun story. Win/win here.