The Magpie Song - Hardcover

Anholt, Laurence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395752809 ISBN 13: 9780395752807

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996

Synopsis

A story based on the traditional rhyme is told through the correspondence of young Carla, who lives in the city and writes about a forthcoming sibling, and her grandfather, who lives in the country and makes up riddles about the birds in his yard.

About this title

From Booklist

Ages 5^-8. Picture books often fail because they have no story to tell; here, there is almost too much story and metaphor in a melancholy mystery that is far from the cheery toddler books Anholt does with his wife, Catherine. The old riddle "One for sorrow, two for joy . . . Seven for a secret never to be told" is dramatized in a contemporary story told in letters between a child in the city and her grandfather in the country. High up in her apartment on a noisy street, she's lonely and worried because her father has no job: will they soon be homeless? Grandad is lonely, too, and he's ill. He tells her about a family of magpies he's watching and about a secret he's leaving her. The bold acrylic illustrations contrast the urban and country scenes and emphasize the vitality of the birds and the connection between the letter writers. Kids may be puzzled by what is not spelled out in the story, but some may want to fill in the spaces for themselves. What is the secret never to be told? Hazel Rochman

Review

"The bold acrylic illustrations contrast the urban and country scenes and emphasize the vitality of the birds and the connection between the letter writers." (Booklist, ALA)

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0395752809
• ISBN 13: 9780395752807
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Williams Dan