Crows

Crows: An Old Rhyme
Heidi Holder ~ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987

Hitting the late 80s here, but seeing as this book has been floating around for a while, and seeing that it's (technically) vintage, I thought I'd humor it with a write up. Though the lovers in the story-- a weasel and a mink-- do intimidate me slightly, you can't help give kudos to the drawing chops that produced these lavish animals.

The text is nothing more than a simple counting rhyme, so it's through the pictures that the bulk of the story unfolds.

Two is for mirth

Three is a wedding

Four is a birth

Five is for riches

Six is a thief

Seven is a journey

Eight is for grief
Nine is a secret
Ten is for sorrow
Eleven is for love

That's all there is to it, but the pictures portray a heroic exit, a heartfelt return, a wedding, the birth of a mess of babies, a chest full of treasure, a thieving raccoon, a sail across the seas, a death and a few more things I'm too shallow of mind to understand. Packed with enough symbolism and imagery to constitute a key and notes page, who knew that a white pigeon lading on your windowsill signifies a death in the family?

As you probably guessed, at our house we're in it for the crows, but if you're seeking a good mystery to unravel, here's a lovely place to start.