The Teardrop Baby - Hardcover

Greenfield, Karen Radler

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060229438 ISBN 13: 9780060229436

Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books, 1994

Synopsis

After longing for years for a baby, a couple is given one made from their teardrops by a wizard woman, but after seven years, she takes him away from them.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-K-This unusual picture book borrows elements from traditional tales but fails to fashion them into a coherent whole. Greenfield's story concerns a childless couple, a mysterious old woman, some magical baguettes, and (possibly) sentient plants. When a "ragged old wizard woman" grants the couple's wish for a child (created from their tears), they are both pleased and fearful. As warned, the woman returns after seven years and takes the boy to her home "at the edge of the world." Confused and lonely, he weeps-and flowers bloom in the wasteland. Over time, the flowers grow into a path, drawing him ever closer to his home. Eventually, he declares his independence (via a fortune baked in a loaf of bread) and returns to his parents. No longer afraid of the wizard woman, the man and his wife use her magic six more times and live busily ever after. The confusing, cluttered story line lacks the simplicity and logic of a traditional tale, and fails to provide sufficient explanation for the unusual plot details. Collicott's illustrations, reminiscent of Carolyn Croll's work, suit the fairy-tale flavor of the story, with simple, somewhat static pictures and minimal detail. However, the decision to paint eyes on the flowers creates a distinctly creepy atmosphere and is not explained in the text. Children will be better served by Carolyn Croll's The Little Snowgirl (Putnam, 1989) or a good picture-book version of Rapunzel.
Lisa Dennis, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

In both text and art, a quality approximating Bosch for the younger set informs this seemingly straightforward book and adds sufficient subtleties to reward many readings. Collicott's illustrations, with many-eyed flowers and a deliciously scary depiction of the edge of the world, realize and enhance Greenfield's (Sister Yessa's Story) cryptic tale of a couple in fairy-tale costume who weep over their lack of a child, then use the tears to water a cottage garden in which roses bloom even in the snow. The roses catch the eye of a ragged wizard woman who bakes fortunes in her baguettes and who promises the pair a teardrop child while exacting from them the baby's future. When claimed, the child becomes the woman's hard-worked bread boy; through a clever ruse, he regains his future and returns home. Children may question the wizard woman's motives here, as well as her swift and virtually unexplained disappearance at story's end. A few logistical points about the genesis of the teardrop baby (a reflection in a cradle of tears turns to ice, then back to a reflection again in the convoluted process) are also puzzling. In the end, however, compensatory chants and magical songs reinforce the book's charm-and its reassuring, albeit sophisticated notion that tears of sorrow can produce wildflowers of joy. Ages 4-9.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0060229438
• ISBN 13: 9780060229436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Collicott Sharleen