Daily Archives: January 2, 2019

Illustrations by Bonnie Helen Hawkins

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Summary

I am as brown as brown can be,
And my eyes as black as sloe;
I am as brisk as brisk can be,
And wild as forest doe.
(The Child Ballads, 295)

So begins a beautiful tale of love, loss and revenge. Following the seasons, A Pocketful of Crowsbalances youth and age, wisdom and passion and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless wild girl.

Only love could draw her into the world of named, tamed things. And it seems only revenge will be powerful enough to let her escape.

Beautifully illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins, this is a stunning and original modern fairytale.

From Amazon.com

Review

I was immediately drawn in by the cover of this book, because yes, I am one of those! The black with the gold in contrast, especially since the gold is so shiny, really caught my attention. Also, the design on the cover is just so gorgeous.

Simple writing style- even though its for adults.

While this is classified as an adult book, because of maybe one or two of the themes, the writing style is very simple. To me this didn’t bother me because since it was a fairytale, it was like re-reading some of your favorite classics from when you were a child. It was written in first person which was a little different as not many books are written in first person now, or so I see.

A classic fairytale with a new twist.

This was the traditional kind of story of love and revenge when a lover turns against you. But instead of it being a wicked witch who does all the work, it was the hurt lover, who happens to be some kind of witch or woodland creature. So it was interesting to see how the townspeople viewed her and why they disliked her but as a reader you really understood what she was going through. I really did enjoy that being able to see it from a few sides.

Gorgeous illustrations – so rare!

Once you get to a certain age, people stop putting illustrations into books and this one had so many gorgeous illustrations! Each chapter started with an illustration with sometimes images being placed throughout. It was so refreshing and really added to the story in my opinion. Since it’s so rare to get a book with pictures, to me, it just took me back to my childhood more!

Overall this book was incredibly simple to read, with it really only taking a day to get through. It’s not challenging but just so beautiful overall. It had an interesting ending, which I didn’t see coming, and was just such a joy to read. I’m very happy that I picked it up and this would be a wonderful book to add to your collection, or give as a gift!

For that, I give this book 4/5 teacups!

Happy Reading!