Really Nice!!!

Pickin' Peas - Pat Cummings, Margaret Read MacDonald

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

 

                Pickin Peas is the beautiful retelling of folktale that originally appeared, according to MacDonald, in Southern Workman. A girl is out picking peas in her garden and confronts a rabbit who, like most rabbits, starts to take the remaining peas.

 

                The story and the accompanying illustrations are absolutely charming.

 

                The retelling is very much in the tradition of the Joel Chandler Harris collected tales – the Brer Rabbit tales (tales in which the hunter animals, such as the wolf, are the slave owners and the weaker but more cunning animals, like rabbits and pigs, are the slaves. The best version of the Three Little Pigs is from Chandler’s collection), and there is even a reference to the Brer stories in the details of the pictures.

 

                There is much to recommend the story from the use of an African-American girl who deals with problems on her own and comes to terms with what she cannot change to the beautiful drawings. MacDonald also includes an afterword which gives suggests about how to perform the story either to an individual child or to a group of children. She also includes musical notation for the song in the story.

 

                The story is a wonderful surprise in how lovely it is - for the narration to the illustrations.

 

                Highly recommended.