Secret River

Description: The powerhouse illustrator pair of Leo and Diane Dillon re-imagine the only story Pulitzer Prize winner Rawlings ("The Yearling") ever wrote for children. Calpurnia discovers a secret river in a Florida forest, where she catches enough fresh fish to feed her hungry neighbors. Full color.

Brief description: Leo and Diane Dillon are an award winning illustrator pair that have collaborated of book projects for more than fifty years, winning two consecutive Caldecott Medals for Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People's Ears and Ashanti To Zulu: African Traditions. They have also received five New York Times Best Illustrated Books Awards, five Coretta Scott King Honors and one Coretta Scott King Award and many other awards and distinctions. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York.

Review Quotes:
The Secret River.

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan (Author), Dillon, Leo (Illustrator), Dillon, Diane (Illustrator)
Jan 2011. 56 p. Atheneum, hardcover, $19.99. (9781416911791).

Rawlings' 1956 Newbery Honor title is newly illustrated here in the Dillons' signature style, with glowing,
full-page acrylic paintings and small freestanding images that capture the story's magic realism from a
child's viewpoint. At the breakfast table, Calpurnia's father says hard times have come, especially for poor people. Calpurnia does not feel "poor," but her father has no fish to sell in his market. So with the advice of a wise soothsayer, Mother Albirtha, Calpurnia dares to venture out into a dark forest and follows her nose to find a secret river, where she catches fish and brings them home. Filled with pattern and texture, the images occassionally have a static quality. They are at the best in scenes of the brave child on her perilous journey, finding her way back in the dark, past an owl, a big black bear, and a crouching panther, until she returns to her parents' loving embrace and feels the joy of saving her community.-- Hazel Rochman
--BOOKLIST, December 15, 2010