Review of "The Six Swans," by Robert D. San Souci

Review of

The Six Swans, by Robert D. San Souci ISBN 0671658484

Five out of five stars

 This fairy tale uses three themes very common in such tales, the mysterious beautiful woman that enthralls the king, the evil stepmother and the evil, manipulative witch. It opens with an elderly widowed king with seven children, one daughter and six sons, hunting alone in the forest. When the king gets hopelessly lost, he encounters a grizzled old woman that offers to help him if he will vow to marry her beautiful, but oddly mysterious daughter. With no other way out of his dilemma, the king agrees to make her his queen.

 The daughter is of course an evil witch and casts a spell that turns the six brothers into beautiful, white swans, the girl manages to avoid the fate of her siblings. She learns that it is possible to break the spell, but only if she makes no sound for six years and sews each of them a shirt made from dew-flowers. Assuming the role of the loving sister, she stops talking and laughing and begins the slow process of spinning the shirts.

 When she is found by another king that is enchanted by her beauty and makes her his queen, the daughter is severely stressed and considered odd, until she is accused of being a witch. The witch of the forest is the aunt of the king and she lobbies to have the queen formally declared a witch and executed. At the day she was scheduled to die, her brothers in their swan forms swoop in, she covers them with the shirts that she made and can finally speak. The forest witch is revealed and suffers the fate of witches.

 While there is some tension in this story, there is nothing that will cause consternation in the young reader. It is a story where evil is punished, and the principles live happily for many years. The moral of perseverance in the face of adversity is one that is important for children to learn.

Review of "Working Cotton," by Sherley Anne Williams

Review of

Working Cotton, by Sherley Anne Williams ISBN 0152000046

Five out of five stars

 When I was young, the phrase “the cotton picker” was used as a derogatory term that could be used in polite society. It was of course a reference to poor blacks that did the hard work of manually picking the cotton from the mature plants in the fields. This book tells the story of a black family where all members are bussed to the fields before dawn so that they can start picking at first light and continue until there is no longer enough light. The father, mother and all children work in the fields and the story is told from the perspective of a girl old enough to pick, but not old enough to have her own sack.

 Their wages are determined by how much their sacks weigh, so the most significant caption is the one where the father’s sack is being weighed, even with the minimal use of visual features, the way his hands are jammed in his pants demonstrates how critical the moment is. The daily bread for the family is literally at stake.

 The format is a watercolor-style minimalist image taking up both pages with a short caption of text. The text is written in the language of the people being depicted, some example phrases are, “It be cold, cold, cold” and “Daddy picking the row side of Ruise and Jesmarie; they picking the row side of us.”  

 This book is a history lesson of how it was for many black families for approximately a century after emancipation. Although they were legally free people, economically they were not. While the families remained intact, everyone worked in the fields, for every pound of cotton was needed in order for them to survive.

Review of "Black Beauty: New Age Graphic Novel," by Anna Sewell

Review of

Black Beauty: New Age Graphic Novel, by Anna Sewell ISBN 0883010941

Five out of five stars

 This story is a classic and it is fitting that this version is designed to be assigned as a classroom project. There is a foreword directed at the teacher as well as discussion questions at the end. It is both a history lesson of the time when horses were the main source of transportation and a presentation of the inclination of some to commit animal cruelty. There are ways to get animals to perform well that involve proper care versus exploitation.

 The visual nature of this abridgement provides an incentive for students to read the book without any significant loss of the theme of the story. Black Beauty and his fellow horses are presented as feeling, knowing beings rather than as simple draft animals and I strongly recommend this book for all K-12 academic libraries as well as personal libraries for children with a heart for animals.