Sinat and the Instrument of the Heart

K-Gr 4—This sweet story from Cambodia's artistic revival fails to evoke emotion. Sinat lives in a post-revolution village. He dreams of learning to play the country's 2000-year-old instrument, the Kse Diev, also called the "instrument of the heart." His aunt and uncle take him to study with the only remaining master of the Kse Diev following Pol Pot's dictatorship. Sinat then fulfills his dream when he plays at the prince's wedding in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's genocide is mentioned only in the foreword; further sources will be necessary to fully understand the political situation. Stiff dialogue and sentences with too many prepositions make for a bumpy read. The text jumps disjointedly from sentimentality to omniscient narration. Soothing watercolor illustrations of animals and landscape are marred by two-dimensional humans.—Richelle Roth, Boone County Public Library, KY