The Giants' Farm

The Giants' Farm

Jane Yolen

pictures by Tomie de Paola 1977

Here's another "blast from the past" for me, a Weekly Reader book illustrated by Tomie de Paola.  These were my bread and butter in elementary school.  How nostalgic de Paola's pictures are!

This cute easy reader follows a group of giants in a series of short stories.  The talented Yolen gives the stories substance and is what makes these vintage easy readers so much richer than some of the bland modern books I see today.  The stories are simple (the twin giants, Grab and Grub, have a secret and smart giant Dab predictably gets it out of them, or big Grizzle is sad and upset about being the biggest until Dab needs his help with a big problem).  Jane Yolen's writing goes to show that these kinds of books can be well written and enjoyable. 

One flake. 
Two flakes.
It kept on snowing.
Little Dab thought about dreaming.  He thought about eating.  He thought about rhymes.  He thought about sleeping and filling and telling. He thought and thought about making something from nothing.

Owl Moon

This was one of the first loved books in the Marlowe household.  It came in the mail when Madeleine and Henry were toddlers and our book collection was just starting out.  I have always loved the sparse poetic words, which I read slow and soft.

 Owl Moon

Jane Yolen

illustrated by John Schoenherr 1987

In our own backyard we have an owl, and sometimes late at night, in the tiny upstairs bathroom, you can hear it calling.  I can't explain it, but the sound of an owl, like a far-off train whistle, is at once the most melancholy and comforting of sounds.  In Owl Moon, a nameless father and daughter go out into the snowy woods.  It's cold and quiet while they are calling for an owl.

We walked on. 
I could feel the cold,
as if someone's icy hand
was palm-down on my back.
And my nose
and the tops of my cheeks 
felt cold and hot
at the same time.
But I never said a word.
If you go owling
you have to be quiet
and make your own heat. 

Elsie's Bird

This summer Madeleine and I read "O Pioneers" by Willa Cather (I followed it up with "My Antonia" which I loved even more and heartily recommend).  Cather was inspired by Walt Whitman's poem by the same name.

All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers!  O pioneers!


The writing in Cather's book is simple but at times very beautiful.  And she writes so lovingly of the land, the prairie out west.

Everywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was full of the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an oven.  The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like pleasant things in a dream.  He could feel nothing but the sense of diminishing distance.  It seemed to him that his mare was flying, or running on wheels, like a railway train.  The sunlight, flashing on the window-glass of the big red barns, drove him wild with joy.

 Elsie's Bird

Jane Yolen 2010

illustrated by David Small

 Elsie's Bird is about a little girl who goes west with her widowed father.  At first the trip is an adventure, but the wild prairie is unlike Elsie's old Boston home and she is fearful of the land.  When she has to rescue her bird- the one thing from back East that brings her comfort- she learns to love and see the beauty in their new surroundings.

Jane Yolen is of course a wonderful writer and David Small's illustrations are a joy to look at.

Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole

Spring is officially here, though you wouldn't be able to tell it today.  We woke up to sleet and rain!

Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole 

Jane Yolan 1992

illustrated by Kathryn Brown

Eeny Mole lives with her two sisters in a hole where they can't tell day from night or summer from winter. She meets a worm and a centipede and a snake who all tell her "astonishing things" about Up Above. Things about light and darkness and the seasons. Her sisters don't care about those things, they're content in their hole. But Eeny decides to see for herself and is amazed.

Light did spread from corner to corner like a blanket above her.  But it also touched in and out of tall trees like a thread.

Day was sharp, but the shadows were soft, and she liked the way they curved around into night.

There was a strange moistness to the air, a little like tears, that was sometimes warm and sometimes cold.  She could not tell if it was winter or summer or something in between.  But there was a murmur all around, of bees and trees, of showers and flowers, of tadpoles and tidepools and crinkly grass.

Honkers

Honkers

Jane Yolan 1993

illustrated by Leslie Baker

A sweet story with soft watercolor illustrations about a girl sent to her grandparent's farm while awaiting the birth of her new brother or sister. While there she hatches some Canadian goose eggs and forms a bond with one of the geese. When the weather changes and summer is over it's time for her to go home and say goodby to her feathered friend.