FLORINA AND THE WILD BIRD

Selina Chonz' delightful book, A Bell for Ursli, won wide acclaim in 1950. Here is another one about the same Swiss family and its heroine is Florina, Ursli's sister who rescues a wild ptarmigan from a marauding fox. At the mountain hut where they have come to pasture the goats for the summer, long-legged, active Florina raises the bird. There's sadness when it must be set free, but when Florina goes in search of it, she finds a lovely crystal high in the crags, sees her bird safe, and goes home happily. Moving rhyme and again the large narrative pictures by Alois Carigiet tell a story as gleaming as the mountains themselves.