Borrowed Black: A Labrador Fantasy - Hardcover

Obed Bryan, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0920911145 ISBN 13: 9780920911143

Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd., 2005

Synopsis

The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Borrowed Black tells the story of an imaginary creature who lives on the coast of Labrador. He borrows everything from his surroundings -- even the wind fuels his very existence. When his greed spurs him to borrow the moon, which he shatters, the land becomes veiled in darkness. Luckily, local sailors come together, return the wind to the air and the moon to the sky, and show us how courage can overcome greed. Borrowed Black has been printed in eleven countries, and has been translated into seven languages, including Innu and Innuit. It has also been used in the Labrador school system. Breathtaking, full colour illustrations by Jan Mogensen perfectly complement this classic tale.

About this title

About the Author

Labrador is the setting for most of the fantasy, poetry, and natural history of children's writer, Ellen Bryan Obed. Borrowed Black - A Labrador Fantasy has been translated into seven languages and appeared in thirteen different editions including a 25th anniversary edition in 2005. Her poetry has appeared in Chickadee magazine and on city buses as part of the project Metroverse. Obed spent ten years (and many more summers) in Labrador where she taught school, researched the flora, and raised three children. She presently lives with her husband in the company of fields and woods in, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, where she writes on subjects of natural history and the north.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-- From its dramatic cover illustration of a cloudy, moonlit night and a lone wolf peering at ice floes and mist-bottomed rocks on page one, the tone is set for this ballad-like tale of the Labradorean monster, Borrowed Black. In rhymed couplets, Obed tells how the huge golem-like creature--made of parts borrowed from many animals held together by the wind--borrows the moon, and, when it breaks, buries it in the sea. The rescue of the moon by a curious boatful of creatures and the monster's demise complete the short tale. Illustrations are in subdued watercolor tones of blue, gray, and brown highlighted with white, which brighten only slightly at the tale's end as Borrowed Black falls to pieces and blows away. Personified characters (walrus, beaver, puffin, moon-faced anchor ) with names such as Cabbage Captain, Mousie Mate, and Sinky Sailor, coupled with a number of unusual terms (all explained in a glossary) add to the foreign flavor of the text. Unusual in content, style , and illustration, this picture-book import will not attract average readers, but it might prove useful in literature classrooms. --Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd.
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0920911145
• ISBN 13: 9780920911143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Mogensen Jan