Margaret Willey

A little girl asks her mother about her six uncles and their childhood together in this poetic Thanksgiving picture-book from author Margaret Willey and illustrator Lloyd Bloom. The rhyming text describes each brother's characteristics, and some of the things they would get up to in youth, before moving on to the girl's anticipation of their upcoming visit...

I have enjoyed other titles from Willey—notably, her picture-books about Clever Beatrice—but Thanksgiving With Me is my first exposure to Lloyd Bloom's work. I found it engaging enough, with an almost folk-song, tall-tale feeling narrative and charmingly expressive and old-fashioned-looking artwork. I don't know that this is destined to become a holiday favorite of mine, but I do like that it captures a young child's eagerness for holiday visitors, something I remember experiencing as a girl myself. Recommended to picture-book readers looking for Thanksgiving tales that center around extended family coming together.… (altro)

The subtitle of this picture book characterizes this story as “an Upper Peninsula conte”[emphasis mine]. A “conte” is defined as “a short tale of adventure” and sometimes as a “medieval” or “fanciful tale”. Well, Clever Beatrice certainly isn’t medieval, but it is set over a hundred years back in time—when Michigan’s forested northernmost peninsula was still being settled and tamed by people of European extraction, mostly Finns, Swedes, Irish, and French Canadians. To the north of this strip of land is Lake Superior; on its east is the St. Mary’s River, and to the south are Lake Michigan, the Straits of Mackinac, and Lake Huron.

In the author’s note that prefaces her book, Margaret Willey notes that French Canadians were attracted to Michigan in the 1800s by a lumber boom, and that they regaled the men of the lumber camps and iron mines with their “contes”—tales of wild exaggeration, comic detail, and rhyming dialect. The author writes that Clever Beatrice is an amalgam of several stories about voyageurs (boatmen employed by companies involved in Canada’s fur trade). The twist is that it’s got a whip-smart girl as its heroine

Beatrice, who is known for her ability to “think fast on her feet” lives with her mother in impoverished circumstances. When she learns that food is running out, she resolves that she’ll get the money that’s needed to buy food. But there are really only two ways to do so: work with the lumberjacks, cutting down trees, or challenge the rich giant who lives on the other side of the woods. He can’t resist gambling on his own strength, but he’s known to be none too sharp. “When you’re a rich giant,” Beatrice’s mother tells her, “you don’t have to be smart.”

The next day, Beatrice walks deep into the woods, deeper than she’s ever been before, encountering lumberjacks felling a mighty tree just before she reaches the giant’s house. She rouses him from his nap in the late afternoon sun to challenge him to a contest. “Who can strike a harder blow?” she’d like to know.

Beatrice’s powers of observation and suggestion are enough for her to win ten gold coins from the giant, who then proposes a second challenge as to who can carry the most water from the well to the house. The giant fills a dozen buckets, but when Beatrice prepares to lasso the well itself, planning to pull the whole darned thing to the house, the giant is alarmed: Where will he get his water in the future? He’d rather relent and cough up the coins than have his well moved.

A final challenge revolves around the throwing of a heavy iron bar. When it’s Beatrice’s turn to throw, another of her ideas frightens the highly suggestible giant. In no time at all, her foreknowledge of the big man’s stupidity and her perceptiveness about what makes him tick—fearfulness and a desire to preserve what he’s got—earn her a fortune: thirty gold coins. When she leaves, he’s relieved to still have his well and a house with a door.

Willey’s telling is lively with dialogue and detail. Heather M. Solomon’s attractive art complements and amplifies the tale. She is particularly good at emphasizing the size difference between the two main characters: Beatrice, with her walnut-sized fist, and the giant, with two mighty arms that can hold hold six buckets each.

Possessing the flavour of both French Canada and the northern-Michigan woods, this is a terrific picture book that would make for a great read-aloud.… (altro)