Seacrow Island - a bookwrap

If once you have slept on an island

You'll never be quite the same;

You may look as you looked the day before

And go by the same old name, 

You may bustle about in street and shop

You may sit at home and sew,

But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls

Wherever your feet may go. 

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that

And close to your fire keep,

But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell

And tides beat through your sleep. 

Oh! you won't know why and you can't say how

Such a change upon you came,

But once you have slept on an island,

You'll never be quite the same. 

Rachel Lyman Field

Unwrapping today's book...

Author:  Astrid Lindgren

from The New York Review Children's Collection

The New York Review Children’s Collection began in 2003 in an attempt to reward readers who have long wished for the return of their favorite titles and to introduce those books to a new generation of readers. The line publishes picture books for preschoolers through to chapter books and novels for older children. Praised for their elegant design and sturdy bindings, these books set a new standard for the definition of a “classic.” 

PRAISE

Astrid Lindgren’s Seacrow Island (1964), an idyll about a family and a village set in the Stockholm archipelago in the mid-twentieth century, has enchanted me...I liked it so much that I consumed it slowly, like a savored cake. A month later I read it again, perhaps even more deliberately. It is a beautiful book, rendered in an entirely fluent English translation by Evelyn Ramsden, and certainly for adult readers as well as the children to whom it could be read.

—April Bernard, NYR Daily

Evelyn Ramsden’s peppy translation brings this gem to a new generation of English-speaking readers, and reminds us that simple pleasures are often the most memorable.

—Literary Features Syndicate

About the book...

Tiny Seacrow Island is joined by hundreds of other islands in the Baltic Sea.  It is perfect because there is everything you would want an island to have, and to be.  Island life is for the avid nature lover and young at heart, although not many young people live there.  The Melkerson family, with four kids, rent out Carpenter's Cottage and find they are a great novelty and warmly welcomed by the locals:

"Johan and Niklas Melkerson, at twelve and thirteen, are natural companions for adventurous Freddy and Teddy (girls exactly their age); dreamy Pelle, the baby of the family, gets up to trouble with bossy Tjorven and fanciful Stina; and ever-responsible Malin, who at nineteen looks after her scatterbrained father as well as her brothers, catches the eye of all the island's young men." 

-nyrb.com

After a summer's stay on Seacrow Island the Melkerson family feel like it is their  new found home (albeit rundown and badly need of repair).  The characters are vividly portrayed, very charming and believable.  The island community is tight knit and inclusive. The setting of the story is alluring and the adventures portrayed are engrossing... luring the reader to join in and be accepted by the islanders too.  

This rich story is full of the best in storytelling:  "sweetness and sorrow, humour and suspense" spun by the famous author of Pippi Longstocking.   I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it.  

-nyrb.com

About the author...

Astrid Lindgren was born in Vimmerby, Småland, in 1907. She died at the age of 94, after a very productive artistic life. As an author, a publisher, and a vocal advocate for human rights she had a decided impact on the world of children's literature and on society's views on children's rights.

Travelling to Vimmerby today, you still find rural charm in the depths of the Swedish forests. The birth-place of Astrid Lindgren is situated right on the edge of the tiny town. Imagining her childhood hundred years ago is easy,  spent with cows and discovering hidden forest paths.

But the artist Astrid Lindgren never settled for the picturesque and the nostalgic. In her work, she took firm stand points: for peace, democracy and in oposition of all kinds of violence. She was very much a part of the public debate, in articles and in speeches. And her views were often well ahead of its time.

Read on and read always!

It's a wrap.

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