Come Again, Pelican

From the creator of Corduroy, a newly restored classic picture book that celebrates a child's bond with the natural world.

Every summer Ty's family came to camp in their trailer at the same beautiful spot on the white sand dunes by the ocean. And every year, as long as Ty could remember, the same old pelican had welcomed them. This year, as soon as the trailer was parked, Ty pulled on his shiny red wading boots and ran with his fishing pole to look for his friend.

"Be sure not to lose those new boots of yours," his father said. And Ty didn't - not really. But by the time the tide had quietly crept in and as gently flowed out again, some surprising things had happened and both he and the pelican had made unexpected catches. What could they have been to make both boy and bird so happy when each swapped his catch with the other?

Pictures full of space and light and the shining colors of sky and sand and sea help to tell the delightful story of Ty's adventurous afternoon.

Don Freeman, creator of such popular children's books as Corduroy, Norman the Dorman, Mop Top, and Dandelion, was born in 1908 in Chula Vista, California. After graduating from high school in St. Louis, Missouri, he attended summer art school in San Diego. There he met his future wife, Lydia Cooley. They married in New York in 1932. Don struggled to earn a living playing trumpet in jazz bands. After losing his instrument on the subway one night, he turned to drawing. Soon his sketches of New York City appeared in the Herald Tribune, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. He was also an illustrator for William Saroyan and Brooks Atkinson. Before his death in 1978, he wrote and illustrated over thirty children's books, and was the illustrator for over a dozen other titles.