THE SWAN CHILDREN
adapted by David Day & illustrated by Richard Evans
After the death of King Lir's queen, he marries her lovely sister Ava, whose failure to bear a child turns her against her four stepchildren. She turns them into swans, in which guise they wander for 1000 years before the spell is broken so that they can join their father in his kingdom beneath the sea. Day retells this rather long Irish legend with pleasing grace; for his picture book debut, Evans uses soft, very pale images framed in imaginative shapes and swirling lines that appropriately echo the watery venue and mists of time. Attractive. (Folklore/Picture book. 6-11)*justify no*