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Tender -- and personal -- story just out from Lois Lowry
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A war-weary father chooses not to shoot and a daughter is imprinted with her father's compassion in this just released picture book from award- winning children's story writer Lois Lowry.
It's a vignette from Lowry's own childhood, circa 1945. We see her picking out a colorful plaid shirt -- much too big -- to go on a hunting outing with her father, whom she hardly knows because he has been away at war for so long.
The day starts early and they stop at a diner for breakfast. When he finds out her favorite food is cherry pie, this dad who has missed so much buys her two pieces and a large glass of milk.
It seems they're going to shoot crows that have been mangling the crops in this central Pennsylvania farmland setting. The father teaches his daughter to make the "crow call."
When she succeeds, the father doesn't shoot. Whether this means he has had enough of hunting for all time or just this particular time is left for the reader to imagine. The girl knows enough about the real world not to be fooled into thinking crows will not be killed.
To emphasize the truth in this true story, Lowry provides a picture of herself in the too-long, rolled-sleeve plaid shirt her father bought her.
Lowry is a two-time Newbery winner: Her 1990 Number the Stars tells the story of a 10-year-old girl who helps smuggle a Jewish friend's family out of Denmark. In The Giver, 1993, she postulates a utopian world where people have given up most of their humanity to create an unwaivering, safe society and shows how costly that can be.
Her 2008 comedy, The Willoughby's, is a parody of the old-fashioned children's novel, dysfunctional family, orphans and all.
