My Favorite Childhood Reads
This book, with its worn hardback cover, has been with me perhaps longer than any other. Mom and Dad would read me chapters at bedtime before I learned to read on my own. The author shares our family name. I’ve often wondered if that’s why my parents (or grandparents?) bought the book.
It’s the story of a tiny boy, a child of the Little People, who arrives unexpectedly in an English garden. An assortment of birds is checking out a strange new plant, something the gardener brought home from a recent holiday in the tropics, when they find the dark-eyed infant sleeping in a flower. The kid is obviously far from home with no one to take care of him. So a pair of songbirds takes him to their nest in a hawthorn tree, and he grows up with three newly hatched chicks.
The “wind call” in the title is that subtle change in the air that marks the approach of fall, telling migratory birds that it’s time to fly south. Father Blackcap sings the little ones to sleep every night with a song about the great flight and their sunny winter home by the Mediterranean Sea.
When his adopted brothers are ready for their first flying lesson, the boy, Pierello, is old enough to climb out of the nest and make his way to the ground. He spends an idyllic summer learning to fend for himself in the woods: picking wild berries, sliding down little waterfalls in the burbling stream, consorting with glow-worms, butterflies, dormice, and all types of birds. There are line drawings of Pierello and his friends, and a half-dozen color pictures printed on special paper. Behind all these happy adventures looms the novel’s Big Question: will this wingless child find a way to go south with his family when the Wind Call comes?
It’s the story of a tiny boy, a child of the Little People, who arrives unexpectedly in an English garden. An assortment of birds is checking out a strange new plant, something the gardener brought home from a recent holiday in the tropics, when they find the dark-eyed infant sleeping in a flower. The kid is obviously far from home with no one to take care of him. So a pair of songbirds takes him to their nest in a hawthorn tree, and he grows up with three newly hatched chicks.
The “wind call” in the title is that subtle change in the air that marks the approach of fall, telling migratory birds that it’s time to fly south. Father Blackcap sings the little ones to sleep every night with a song about the great flight and their sunny winter home by the Mediterranean Sea.
When his adopted brothers are ready for their first flying lesson, the boy, Pierello, is old enough to climb out of the nest and make his way to the ground. He spends an idyllic summer learning to fend for himself in the woods: picking wild berries, sliding down little waterfalls in the burbling stream, consorting with glow-worms, butterflies, dormice, and all types of birds. There are line drawings of Pierello and his friends, and a half-dozen color pictures printed on special paper. Behind all these happy adventures looms the novel’s Big Question: will this wingless child find a way to go south with his family when the Wind Call comes?
Looking back, I wonder if my love of nature began with this
fairy tale. Many of its creatures were (and still are) unfamiliar to a kid
growing up in Texas, but I’ve always suspected the portrayals were accurate.
Today, thanks to the Internet, it’s not hard to check. I did some surfing and found that yes, male and female blackcaps do share chick-rearing duties.
Nightjars really do fly silently and lay their camouflaged eggs on bare ground.
And what about the author and illustrator, Rosalie K. Fry? I didn't think I'd ever heard of her, aside from this book. But it turns out she wrote several others, and one became the basis for the indie film The Secret of Roan Inish. Wow. Who knew?
And what about the author and illustrator, Rosalie K. Fry? I didn't think I'd ever heard of her, aside from this book. But it turns out she wrote several others, and one became the basis for the indie film The Secret of Roan Inish. Wow. Who knew?
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