The Secret River by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

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Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the author of The Secret River and this book were illustrated by two people, Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon. This book is suitable for the reader in age 3-5 years old. This book first published in 2011 and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. And it has 56 pages. [1]   

Summary

Th story tells about a family that has no enough food. there’s just not enough,not enough money, not enough food, not enough fish for her daddy to sell at the market. Hard times have come to the forest, but Calpurnia wants to turn them back into soft times. With her little dog Buggy Horse and a tip from old Mother Albirtha, the wisest person in the forest, Calpurnia finds a secret river and uses the pink paper roses from her hair to catch enough beautiful catfish to feed the whole swamp land with some left over for Daddy to sell. When she tries to find the river again the next day, Mother Albirtha tells her, “Child, sometimes a thing happens once, and does not ever happen anymore. You caught catfish when catfish were needed and you will not find the river again.” The river only appears once to her to help her and her family. [2]

Pros

Ashley as a verified reader rated this book five starts. it was because the author beautifully wrote the book, the story follows a young black girl named Capurnia, who considers herself a poet, as she tries to save her family and community from "hard times" by seeking out a secret river in the woods full of fish in a time when there seems to be no fish for her father to sell. The most interesting part of the illustration method is that Weisgard chose to have the book printed on tan colored paper to capture the skin tone of the characters while drawing them in outline form, rather than coloring them in with a skin tone. Rawlings, a white author, had complex relationships with black authors and neighbors in Florida during the 1930s and 1940s. She had a strong friendship with Zora Neal Hurston, but Hurston still entered her home through the back door when she visited. This children's book is beautifully written and simply magical in its adventures. It also delves into the natural ecology of rural Florida in detail. [3]

Publishers Weekly described why this book is amazing, this book had mesmerizing patterns and colors distinguish the Dillons' spreads, which balance large, captivating panels with smaller vignettes clustered around the text. Their acrylics are a foray into magical realism (when Calpurnia invents a poem about befriending bees, her hair becomes a tangle of purple flowers thick with the insects), and their portraits are always true to Rawlings's imagining. [4] 

References