What Will the Robin Do Then?

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

The starting points for this warm and witty collection of stories and
poems include disabled and refugee children, the training of Seeing Eye
dogs, Halloween, traumatic losses, and family celebrations. In her
preface, Jean Little, the author of more than 20 books for children,
explores what prompts change while capturing the moment when change
takes place. She reminds us that in The Secret Garden, a book she loved
as a child, we enjoy watching Mary grow.

Little’s characters grow in these multileveled stories. The voice,
direct or indirect, is wise and loving. When young Dinah Archer
struggles to cope with giving up a guide dog she has trained to a new,
blind owner, Dinah’s mother reminds her that when a dog has been loved
as she has loved Tizzy, that dog “has lots of love to give others.”

The verse is whimsical, teeming with wonderful images. “Rain,” for
example, is “as bent on mischief as a child,” “tickles grass and
taps on solemn doors,” and “gets down / To scrub the tiny, blissful
backs of toads.” Apples are “[s]treaked with green and splashed with
yellow, / astonishing / friendly / and wonderful / Like language.”
This collection will delight young readers. Highly recommended.