After sitting on this review for a while, I have discovered that parents telling their children that there’s a man inside a lamppost is quite common—well, at least, in a country far from where I live in. Anyway, I’m writing my review the way I see the book and felt for it after I have read it and not including my process of rumination in cooking up something to write about.
Un ami lumineux follows the story of a kid who lives two separate lives. One with his mother in the countryside where he has his friends, and one in the city with his father where he lives beside a crosswalk. He was convinced by his father that a man lives inside the lamppost and works there day and night in turning the light red so that people can pass through safely. Eventually, the kid decided to go out one night and leave a snack for the unseen hard-working man.
I mulled this over with a friend and he told me that the book indeed has a magical element to it—considering it is close to impossible to have someone live and work endlessly inside a lamppost, let alone have him fit. However, I wasn’t convinced at all! A magical element to me is more than just this kind of idea. I know I’m being a bit overly dramatic over a children’s book, but I wouldn’t want my child to suddenly go out at night and put food beside a lamppost. It doesn’t only possess great risk on the child, but it’s simply plain dangerous.
The story was extremely straight-forward and there wasn’t anything special about it aside from the said “magical element.” And it truly threw me off guard when that scene came of the mc going out at night. Regardless, I find it quite charming. The way the child was very thoughtful over someone who works tirelessly. But I saw it more as a child wanting to have a friend and was given no choice but to interact with something that could’ve possibly been the reason why a parent would come to a police to blotter in a missing child report.
