A Visit to the Country - Hardcover

Johnson, Herschel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060228547 ISBN 13: 9780060228545

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1989

Synopsis

While visiting his grandparents in the country, Mike finds an abandoned baby bird, takes care of him until he learns how to fly, and makes an important discovery about when to let go.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 3-- This book is more a tribute to Romare Bearden's accomplishments as an artist than as a picture-book illustrator. The slight story takes place during the summer, when a boy visits his grandparents on their rural farm. Mike helps his grandparents perform their daily chores, and then, while off exploring, he finds a baby cardinal. He nurses it to fledgling status, and then sets it free, despite his desire to keep it as a pet. The story teaches kindness to wild animals both by caring for those in need and by respecting their freedom. While the story is ordinary, the illustrations are unusual. African-American Bearden here adapts a mural style to the smaller stage of the children's book. His vivid watercolors are both primitive and abstract, touching both abstract and native African roots. In spite of the exuberance of the pictures, it is sometimes difficult to tell the subject from the background, which may be troubling to younger readers. More striking in depth of color and more rural than Ezra Jack Keats' portrayal of black American child life, the illustrations here have a greater authenticity as true expressions of Afro-American artistic accomplishment, and are worth having in spite of some of the difficulties in interpreting the pictures. --Ruth K. MacDonald, Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0060228547
• ISBN 13: 9780060228545
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Illustrator: Bearden Romare