Mole and the Baby Bird - Hardcover

Newman, Marjorie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582349142 ISBN 13: 9781582349145

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 2004

Synopsis

A Christopher Award Winner
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Book Sense 76 Children's Pick
A Junior Library Guild Selection

About this title

Review:

This sweet, simple story from Marjorie Newman (The King and the Cuddly) and award-winning Scottish illustrator Patrick Benson (The Sea-Thing Child) somehow avoids cliché while teaching one of life's oldest lessons: if you love something, you really shouldn't hold it prisoner in a tiny, handmade wooden cage.

With spare text, Newman explains how Mole finds a baby bird that has fallen out of its nest, apparently abandoned. ("Mole waited and waited, but no big bird came to help it.") He takes the tiny bird home to keep, despite his parents' warnings: "'It's my pet bird,' said Mole. 'It's not a pet bird. It's a wild bird,' said his mother." Eventually, the baby bird tries to fly, and the earnest, industrious Mole builds a cage (with the bird's help!) to keep him from leaving. ("He put the bird into its new cage. The bird was sad. Mole's mother was sad, too. But Mole kept his bird, because he loved it.") Eventually, it falls to visiting Grandad to gently nudge Mole into doing what he knows he must.

As in The Sea-Thing Child (with Russell Hoban), Benson's understated artwork helps to keep this fairly adult message accessible for wee ones, with thoughtful compositions that carry the meter towards the book's inevitable end. But Benson's most memorable accomplishment is the subtly sad and comic baby bird, who regularly peeks out to look directly at the reader. (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes

About the Author:

Patrick Benson won the Mother Goose Award for his illustration of William Mayne's Hob Stories. He has illustrated more than twenty books, including Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and Mole and the Baby Bird by Marjorie Newman, a Christopher Award winner.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1582349142
• ISBN 13: 9781582349145
• Binding: Board book
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Benson Patrick