FernFolio

Young Cal has watched the Book Lady on her sorrel mare ride the long trail up to his family’s farm every two weeks to deliver books.  While his younger sister Lark loves to read and would happily have her nose in a book from dawn to dusk, Cal has never learned to read, and feels that he was not born to “sit so stoney-still a-staring at some chicken scratch.”  Since money is scarce and there are no schools for the children to attend, Cal spends his days working with his Pap around the farm.
But, when a long, hard winter settles in, keeping Cal and his family housebound, and still the Book Lady rides through the cold and snow to deliver her books, Cal begins to wonder what might be in those books that makes getting them into the hands of readers would be so important.  He asks his sister Lark to teach him to read, and finds, to his amazement, that this winter “of deepest snow, of cold eternal,” passes happily, as he discovers the joy of reading.
Charmingly written in dialect, and illustrated with the gentle water colours of David Small, That Book Woman is a jewel of a story about a young boy who discovers the power – and magic – of reading.
FernFolio Editor