The change of seasons always makes me melancholy. I've always felt this, even as a child. That might we why I love children's books that evoke this feeling, even in a soft innocent way. This little Weekly Reader edition by Palmer Brown is one such book.
It starts off with the happy description and antics of a mouse family that live in an old grandfather clock. (It's explained that because the mother mouse had a sense of humor the mouse children are named, "Hickory", "Dickory" and "Dock"). As the story progresses, Hickory decides to leave his family and strike out on his own in the meadow.
There he makes himself a cozy house in a burrow under a rock. (He even has an old pickle jar "sunroom".). Soon he befriends a grasshopper.
"The grasshopper's name was Hope, so Hickory called her Hop for short. Together they went exploring, and they discovered the sweetness of blackberries and the sharpness of sassafras twigs. They learned useful things- that chicory is bitter, but sorrel only sour. And they learned useless things too- that the track of a snail is silver winding through the grass, but the light of a firefly is green gold melting in the air."
Of course Summer cannot last, and the chiming of a church bell reminds Hickory that "time is going, never staying, always flowing, every saying: gone!" Since grasshoppers do not last past Summer, Hickory decides to travel with his friend south where it will be warmer. The story leaves off here and though we know the eventual outcome will be bittersweet, we are left with the impression of a beautiful true friendship.
