Immagine dell'autore.

Mary Buff (1890–1970)

Autore di The Apple and the Arrow

20+ opere 1,970 membri 15 recensioni 1 preferito

Sull'Autore

Comprende il nome: Mary Marsh Buff

Serie

Opere di Mary Buff

Opere correlate

Writing Books for Boys and Girls (1952) — Collaboratore, alcune edizioni5 copie

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A young Mayan boy helps his family plant crops and tend to their meager farm. One day his older brother brings home some "magic maize" - corn from the gringos, who say it will grow and produce much better than their own - but their father is too distrustful of the white people to use it. So Fabian decides to plant it in secret. This Newbery Honor Book from 1953 feels its age; it's filled with subalterns who can't seem to make ends meet until the White Saviors come to the rescue. Blech.
 
Segnalato
electrascaife | Jun 24, 2019 |
Mary and Conrad Buff, the husaband-and-wife children's book team who produced Caldecott Honor-winning Dash and Dart (1942) and the Newbery Honor-winning Big Tree (1946), The Apple and the Arrow (1951) and Magic Maize (1953), turn to their favorite subject - the natural world - in this story about a gray fox named Trix. The narrative follows Trix from his birth, through his time as a pup, and into adulthood. When time and growth separates him from his family, his curiosity leads him down into the city, where he finds the House of Good Smells, and a human family who feed him. Frightened away by a police dog, Trix returns to the mountains, where he meets Vix, a young vixen who becomes his mate. Eventually, driven by the hunger of winter, they return to the city, where the human children, Jane and David, are delighted to see them again...

The Buffs produced fourteen children's books, from 1937 through 1968, but Trix and Vix is only the second I have read, following upon their Dash and Dart. Published in 1960, toward the end of their career, it is (like many of their others) a work of naturalistic fiction. Text heavy, for a picture-book, it imagines the human world from a fox's perspective, but does not anthropomorphize its vulpine subject. There is sympathy here, for the creatures of the wild, and a sense that people should behave humanely toward animal-kind. At one point, when the children are upset at a picture in the newspaper of a boy holding up a fox he had shot with a bow and arrow, their father observes that "some men and boys just love to kill anything living." The accompanying artwork here is as naturalistic as the text, and looks to be done in pencil. It has plenty of the detailed hatching for which Conrad Buff was apparently known. Although I enjoyed the illustrations, I did find the animals more skillfully done than the people, whose faces seemed a little off to me. Leaving that aside, this was an enjoyable book, one I would recommend to young readers who enjoy more naturalistic animal fiction, as well as to those interested in the Buffs and their work.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
AbigailAdams26 | Apr 20, 2019 |
Tells the story of a 5000-year-old Redwood Tree, from a seed to the tallest giant in the forest. A bit dated, but it does what it says on the tin, and it's still a nice little story.
 
Segnalato
electrascaife | 1 altra recensione | Feb 25, 2019 |

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Autori correlati

Conrad Buff Illustrator

Statistiche

Opere
20
Opere correlate
1
Utenti
1,970
Popolarità
#13,053
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
15
ISBN
23
Preferito da
1

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