Customer Reviews

Crow Call

5 star:		(13)
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2 star:		(1)
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Lois Lowry and Bagram Ibatoulline have exceeded all expectations in this most wonderful of children's books. The dialogue is down-to-earth, unassuming and even unexpected, capturing a small moment in a child's life that stays with a woman for over 60 years. The illustrations are simply gorgeous, having the quality of transporting the reader right into the action. Simply a timeless gem.

The story is powerful but understated, so that it's depths might be easy to miss if you aren't paying attention. It's told in the small details. Its power is in much of what goes unsaid and undone. So many moments had me on the point of tears.

This is the story of a father back from the war who has been gone so long he's become a stranger to his little girl. He doesn't know her favorite food is cherry pie, which he would if he'd been there... mama put candles on a pie for her last birthday. He's trying to reconnect so he takes her hunting with him, a special day for the two of them, inspired perhaps by her yearning for a hunting shirt she'd seen in a store window. But she is a little frightened by this stranger with a gun, a hunter, by the potential for violence she senses in him. In the most moving exchange she asks him if he's ever scared and he confesses that when he was away in the war he was; but now he is not afraid, he's the pillar of strength that his daughter can rely on. He understands her fears, however. And so, though he explains to her the necessity of killing the crows to protect the crops and addresses her concerns about the baby crows (long grown up and forgotten by their parents), he still refrains from shooting them that day.

The ending only seems anticlimactic if you've missed the undercurrents of emotion that make his restraint a remarkable gift to his daughter. The story shows how he's been desensitized from violence by the war and how she re-sensitizes him. It is deep and momentous, a shift from being a man of war to a man of peace. A poignant
moment in which the daughter becomes her father's teacher.

The book is full of warmth and humor. The joke the father and daughter share when the waitress mistakes her for a boy, the variety of other calls they make for each other: a cow call (moo), a bear call (grrr)... a giraffe call (no noise, just an outstretched neck). The illustration shows the father stretching out his neck with a hilarious giraffe expression on his face.

The story is beautiful enough to stand on its own; but the gorgeous illustrations, inspired by Andrew Wyeth, tel a story all on their own, could stand without the text. They create setting and a mood, dark somber autumnal; but also wonderful characterization. The interchanges between the father and daughter, the subtle expressions on their faces that reveal humor, fear, trust are conversations in themselves that need no words.

Crow Call will join the ranks of the Each-of-Our-Children-Must-Have-a-Copy-of-This books, that include such treasures as When Jessie Came Across the Sea, An Orange for Frankie, and The Yellow Star (an incident by the way which our son's Danish Grandmother-in-Law remembers and says IS a true story). My sisters will also be touched by the copies I am giving them at Christmas, as we lost our "war dad" in the springtime. A beautiful book for both the eyes and the soul!

Lois Lowry is one of only two children's authors to ever win two Newbery Medals. Her Giver trilogy (Giver, Messenger and Gathering Blue) is used in school curriculums all over North America. This new story is wonderfully told and amazingly illustrated. The artwork is vivid and realistic, almost a cross between Norman Rockwell and Alex Colville. The story is that of a young girl out for the day with her father, a father she doesn't really know, for he has just returned from the war. They have gone to hunt crows that are eating the crops. The story is about parents and children getting to know each other. In that sense it is truly universal, which is the best kind of story. Lowry shares in the afterward that this is a true story; it happened to her. This is an amazing book and can be shared with many.

This beautifully told, beautifully illustrated story about a father and daughter tenuously and awkwardly striving to reconnect resonates with me deeply. I was surprised and delighted to discover that my five-year-old loves it too. A book to own and cherish.

This book is almost too beautiful for words, and that is what it conveys so well. It conveys the many things we say to the people we love without actually saying them. I think that is why one reviewer felt let down at the end: this is not a book that hits you over the head with its point. Its meaning is subtle, but having shared many similar moments with my father over the years, wherein we struggled to understand each other without being explicit, I can completely relate to this story. I cried almost throughout the whole book! What a wonderful depiction of the love of a parent and the different ways parents can show their love--through buying their daughters seemingly unnecessary men's hunting shirts, buying two slices of cherry pie for dessert, or merely putting off hunting for the day. I'm never disappointed by Lowry and she continues to impress here.

Wonderful story. Wonderful illustrations! The muted colors were amazing in adding to the mood and beautifully done. I have very much enjoyed Lois Lowry as an author before and she doesn't disappoint in this book either. Well worth the read.

This is a beautiful story, both from a narrative and from an artistic point of view, based on an incident in Lois Lowry's own life, when she goes hunting with her father, who has recently returned from service in World War II. Because he's been gone for so many years, she feels shy with him, and has to practice saying his name, whispering it in the car. "Daddy, Daddy. Saying it feels new." They leave in the gray light of early morning, stopping to eat at a lovingly depicted neighborhood diner, where Liz is mistaken for a boy because of her much-too-big flannel shirt, a gift from her father. When they reach the woods, Liz is given a crow call to wake up the crows, who have been eating their family crops. But when a skyful of crows descends, her father doesn't have the heart to shoot them. The morning excursion, instead of an exercise in killing, becomes a bonding experience for the newly reunited father-daughter pair, and a chance for them to get to know each other all over again. The painted illustrations capture the feel of the post-war era perfectly, with a quiet and muted realistic look to them that resembles the style of illustrators such as Rockwell. The combination of illustrations and text in this lovely story show that Lois Lowry is a master of the picture book medium just as she is the master of so many other genres.

Using her own childhood experiences, Lois Lowry provides a gentle story illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline in CROW CALL, telling of one girl's connection with her father, who has just returned from war. A special gift from a father at war returns to link them in a story of love and warmth.

The sun was just beginning to peek through the curtains in Lizzie's bedroom window. Her bed was rumpled with sleep, but it was a special day for her and she was up early. Her sister Jessica was still asleep as she and her father got ready to drive away in the car. He'd been away for so long he seemed like a stranger and she tentatively turned to him asking, "Daddy, I've never gone hunting before. What if I don't know what to do?" He decided that her job would be to use the crow call and told her that her special shirt would help. When her father bought her the shirt, her sister Jessica was disgusted, saying "that's a man's shirt." It was a beautiful rainbow plaid, something she would treasure and never outgrow. It was hers when Daddy saw that wondrous look on her face.

Lizzie and her father stopped off at the diner before heading off to their hunting expedition. She was a little less tentative now and because he had been gone off to war so long they had to get to know one another again. He asked her what her favorite thing to eat was and before you know it, there were two pieces of cherry pie before her. The waitress thought she was a boy because her braids were tucked in the special shirt, but her Daddy knew. Soon they were in the dusky forest walking a path between the leafless trees. It was almost time to use the crow call, but Lizzie was anxious to find out more about this long absent father. Would Lizzie rediscover the love in her heart she once had for this man she hesitated to call Daddy?

This is a beautifully told tale about a father and daughter, once separated by war, who needed to learn to love each other again. When I read the story the apprehension that Lizzie felt was almost palpable. For children who are separated from their parents and later reunited, it can be a stressful feeling. I loved the little connections in the story that Lizzie's Daddy made with her. Each one showed this little girl that he really knew who she was and loved her dearly. According to the author "The details of this story are true." The stunning artwork meshes perfectly with this story. It is a heartwarming tale that any child or parent who have been separated from one another can relate to.