100 Books, #19: The Egg Tree
Mar. 31st, 2013 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerHappy Easter, all! I'm home for Easter dinner, and for old times sake I reread my childhood Easter favorite, Katherine Milhous's The Easter Egg Tree.
Which, apparently, is actually entitled merely The Egg Tree. I haven't been this surprised since I realized Fievel was actually called An American Tail.
Anyway! Katy and Carl go to their grandmother's house for an Easter egg hunt with their cousins. But Katy can't find any eggs - till she heads into the attic, and finds an old hatbox full of beautiful painted eggs, with designs like The Bright and Morning Star, The Deer on the Mountain, and The Horn-Blowing Rooster.
The children are so delighted by the painted eggs - as who would not be? Ever since I've read this book I've had a yen to learn fancy egg painting - that they paint enough eggs to bedeck an Easter Egg Tree, which people come from far and wide to see.
I adored this book as a child. I loved holiday books (sometime I should talk about our stock of Christmas books), with their own special time of year; and I loved little Katy, who wanted to cry when she couldn't find any eggs, and then found the best eggs of all; and most of all, I loved, loved, loved the illustrations in their odd folkloric loveliness.
There is nothing like revisiting a much-beloved picture book to bring home to pleasure of repetition. I know the illustrations in my favorites so well from pouring over them that I ought to find them boring - but instead the recognition just adds to the delight.
One more thing: a minor character in this book is named Appolonia. I have never seen this name used anywhere else, and I yearn to resuscitate it. Because Appolonia. Is that not lovely?
Which, apparently, is actually entitled merely The Egg Tree. I haven't been this surprised since I realized Fievel was actually called An American Tail.
Anyway! Katy and Carl go to their grandmother's house for an Easter egg hunt with their cousins. But Katy can't find any eggs - till she heads into the attic, and finds an old hatbox full of beautiful painted eggs, with designs like The Bright and Morning Star, The Deer on the Mountain, and The Horn-Blowing Rooster.
The children are so delighted by the painted eggs - as who would not be? Ever since I've read this book I've had a yen to learn fancy egg painting - that they paint enough eggs to bedeck an Easter Egg Tree, which people come from far and wide to see.
I adored this book as a child. I loved holiday books (sometime I should talk about our stock of Christmas books), with their own special time of year; and I loved little Katy, who wanted to cry when she couldn't find any eggs, and then found the best eggs of all; and most of all, I loved, loved, loved the illustrations in their odd folkloric loveliness.
There is nothing like revisiting a much-beloved picture book to bring home to pleasure of repetition. I know the illustrations in my favorites so well from pouring over them that I ought to find them boring - but instead the recognition just adds to the delight.
One more thing: a minor character in this book is named Appolonia. I have never seen this name used anywhere else, and I yearn to resuscitate it. Because Appolonia. Is that not lovely?
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Date: 2013-04-01 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 08:24 pm (UTC)--so true: great to lose yourself in illustrations, as well as a story, you know and love.
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Date: 2013-04-01 11:49 pm (UTC)