The Secret River

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings + Leo and Diane Dillon = pure magic
A depression era story that is just as timely as it is enchanting, this is a stunning picture book for the ages.

There's just not enough...not enough money, not enough food, not enough fish for her daddy to sell at the market. Hard times have come to the forest, but Calpurnia wants to turn them back into soft times. With her little dog Buggy Horse and a tip from old Mother Albirtha, the wisest person in the forest, Calpurnia finds a secret river and uses the pink paper roses from her hair to catch enough beautiful catfish to feed the whole swamp land --with some left over for Daddy to sell. When she tries to find the river again the next day, Mother Albirtha tells her, "Child, sometimes a thing happens once, and does not ever happen anymore....You caught catfish when catfish were needed...you will not find the river again." This story by the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Yearling and literary icon Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is about living in a time of want, yet it is overflowing with riches--stunning language, mystical happenings, wondrous, wondrous artwork. Beautiful in all ways that a book can be beautiful, this unforgettable picture book is a classic in the making.

Author: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 01/04/2011
Pages: 56
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 11.28h x 10.33w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9781416911791
Audience: Ages 4-8

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 3.9
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 143552 / Secret River


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/08/2010
Booklist 12/15/2010 pg. 59
School Library Journal 01/01/2011 pg. 82
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2010 pg. 1271
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2011 - Recommended, Satisfactory
Shelf Awareness 01/01/0001

About the Author
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953) lived for twenty-five years in Cross Creek, Florida, the area that is the setting for The Yearling, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. She is the author of several earlier novels as well as a memoir, Cross Creek, which inspired the acclaimed motion picture of the same name.

Leo and Diane Dillon are an award winning illustrator pair that have collaborated of book projects for more than fifty years, winning two consecutive Caldecott Medals for Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People's Ears and Ashanti To Zulu: African Traditions. They have also received five New York Times Best Illustrated Books Awards, five Coretta Scott King Honors and one Coretta Scott King Award and many other awards and distinctions. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York.