The Crow’s Tale
Naomi Howarth
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
Right from the dazzlingly beautiful cover, this book is sheer magic. Told through a lyrical rhyming text and gorgeous, iridescent lithographic/watercolour illustrations, every turn of the page brings new delight – visual and verbal as we are treated to this tale inspired by a Lenni Lenape Native American legend.
It centres around Crow, a beautiful rainbow coloured bird: well that was then. Moreover, at that time, he had a sweet singing voice. So how/why did he end up with that black plumage and harsh-sounding call?
This pourquoi tale tells just that. It begins one day in the depths of winter, snow has covered the ground and the animals huddle together to forge a plan.

One of their number must take on a perilous journey to bring them some of the Sun’s warmth. The one chosen is none other than Rainbow Crow:
‘The magnificently coloured kaleidoscope Crow
was the one who would battle through ice, wind and snow.”
His flight is swift but hard and long, taking him through the blizzard and into the dazzlingly bright Sun’s realm.

Awoken from his deep slumbers, Sun however is unwilling to return; instead he gives Crow a burning branch to take back to the animals. During his return flight, Crow’s feathers are blackened by smoke and soot, and his voice becomes nothing more than a harsh croaky ‘caw’.

A successful mission, yes and his friends praise him wholeheartedly, but still, Crow has lost his beauty and is despondent.
No matter the Sun tells him: “it’s not how you look but how you behave.” that matters … ‘your beauty inside is the heart of the matter.’
In truth however, there is about Crow, an altogether different kind of beauty – a special gift from the Sun.

It’s the arresting artwork that really steals the show here, wonderfully highlighting the message inherent in the text. Wow! What a debut for Naomi Howarth.
And what an exciting group art project it would make with every member of a group/class contributing a feather for Rainbow Crow and another for his new plumage.

Probably for somewhat older readers/listeners is this amazing retelling of another old tale

The Wild Swans
Jackie Morris
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
Everything Jackie Morris does is brilliant and this is no exception. Here, she takes what is a fairly short story and expands it to 175 pages, enhancing it with her wondrous watercolours

and turning it into something quite out of this world, a coming of age story with new twists and glorious descriptions of the natural world through which Eliza moves and has her being.
‘In the morning, Eliza woke to a chorus rich with the singing of birds. She walked, and soon came to a place in the trees where the branches arched over a clear-water pool. Surrounded on all sides by brambles, with a space where the delicate deer came to drink… also on the smooth surface, so still in the forest glade, a mirrored image of sky and leaves, each crystal sharp.’
And as she reaches the sea: ‘’the waves, slate and gold, wind-wrinkled water. The sun was sinking, lower, lower. Soon it would touch the water, slip down behind the horizon.’ Such mesmerisingly beautiful words.
How brilliantly too, we are allowed to share Eliza’s thoughts and feelings, as well as gaining some insights into various characters. The queen, Eliza’s stepmother we are told, ‘learned the ache of loneliness and the sharp pain of jealousy.’ These are truly three-dimensional characters rather than those one often encounters in the fairy tale genre.

…the bishop…drew the  spider’s web of his plan closer around him like a net.

A book to savour and to revisit, to give and to keep and treasure for oneself; a book to share in the classroom, or, if you can bear to let go of it, for the family bookshelf .

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