The Crow-Girl
The Children of Crow Cove
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A timeless novel about the kindness of strangers
Near a little cove where a brook runs out to the sea live a girl and her grandmother. All alone with no neighbors at all, the two lead a peaceful existence. They have a house, dine on sea kale and mussels and sand snails, and build fires from driftwood. But the grandmother is very old. When the time comes that the girl must bury the woman, she makes up a funeral song about the birds she is watching: Two crows never fly alone, and death is never, ever past. The next day the same crows seem to beckon her, and so the Crow-Girl begins her journey, one in which she will meet people both warm and cold, hurt and hurtful. And the Crow-Girl, before she knows it, has the makings before her of a new family . . .
This lyrical story, with its characters' moments of darkness always overcome through incredible humanity, introduces a strong new voice for American readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marking this Danish author's English-language debut, this lyrical novel opens in a remote cottage, where a woman has taught her granddaughter time-honored ways of wresting a living from the sea. Knowing that she is dying, the grandmother passes along to the apparently nameless girl several nuggets of advice, for example, that she must "continue wishing and hoping, for then, at last, you will get what was wished and hoped for even if it is in a completely different way from what you had imagined." Although the girl realizes the futility of her sole wish that her grandmother not die after the woman's death the child finds the strength she needs to remain hopeful and does, indeed, find happiness in unexpected ways. Packing her few belongings, she follows the coast to a hamlet where a scheming woman offers her shelter and where she stumbles into the name Crow-Girl, due to her coloring and her curved nose. The lass has the good sense to flee from the evil-doer and the good fortune to encounter a sequence of individuals (some of whom have also endured monumental loss) with whom she forges mutually fulfilling bonds. The peripatetic story winds to a close that, despite its fairy tale quality, is credible and satisfying. Imagery involving water, hands and crows becomes a resonant element of the narrative. Readers will hope that more of Bredsdorff's sturdy fiction reaches these shores. Ages 8-12. (May)
