BOAT RIDE WITH LILLIAN TWO BLOSSOM

An imaginative story that the author credits to her father. One peaceful afternoon, Will is fishing—in spite of his inquisitive sister Mabel's incessant questions—when old Lillian Two Blossom, an Indian, appears and asks to go out in their boat. Together, they set forth on a remarkable journey: Lillian becomes young again as the boat flies aloft and she tells them poetic stories—about the spirit fish that make rain; the unseen wolves whose howl is the wind; the caribou who carries the sun; and the little creatures who bring the dark. Lillian looks a lot like Babushka in Rechenka's Eggs (1988), but the illustrator's style is better integrated here, conveying the children's sense of wonder at the beauty and mystery of the natural world. An entertaining variation on familiar "why" stories; a gracious tribute to rural Michigan a few decades ago.