Customer Reviews

The Red Bird

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This book is by the author of Pippi Longstocking, but it is nothing like the Pippi books except in that it focuses on children and the importance of play and freedom in childrens' lives. While Pippi had an unlimited amount of both, Matthew and Anna have none. They are oprhans who are taken in to live with a farmer who doesn't care for them but uses them as farm labor and barely feeds or clothes them enough for their survival. The world is bleak to these children, both in the illustrations and in their own descriptions it is colorless, "as gray as mice", until they discover a magical bird and a magical door that takes them to a children's paradise where they can play and be cared for as much as they want and need.

I choked up and almost couldn't finish reading this book the first time I read it aloud to my children. It IS a VERY sad book, to be sure, and it is NOT a bedtime story or a fun, casual read. It is a deeply serious and moving story that will remind the adult reader of the classic story of The Little Match Girl, except that in The Red Bird the story does not imply that the children die. A child's view will be that they simply stayed in a magical world, while anyone acquainted with The Little Match Girl story will see the parallels quite clearly. It would make a good discussion book to read alongside The Little Match Girl as well as in any discussion of global poverty and how it affects children. (Two days before reading this my oldest daughter watched a news story about children freezing and starving to death in the mountains of Pakistan in earthquake-ravaged villages and it was a timely discussion for us.) But it is certainly necessary to assess your child's age and emotional maturity before considering reading this book. Because of the extremely serious subject matter (including some of Anna's comments about expecting to die, and later wanting to die) as well as the length of the book, I'd say the 4-8 age range given for this book is too low, and it is more appropriate for something like 6-10, again depending on maturity.

I picked up this book in haste at the library, after seeing it was by Astrid Lindgren and a quick thumb through to see if it was an appropriate length for my five year old. The story was incredibly dismal, despite the "happy" ending with it's implied heavenly afterlife. The use of repetition in the book was far more suitable for very young children, however the darkness of the subject was not. Fans of this story may not appreciate me saying so, but I found Anna's melodramatic proclamations of "surely I will die" throughout the book to be unnerving. My five year old did not enjoy this story.

It's true that the text is a little tedious in its repetition, but I find the imagery and story captivating and hauntingly beautiful. It's also currently one of my eight-year-old daughter's favorite books; we are going on an extended road trip and it will be one of the few books coming with us.

An older book, recently republished, by the author of the Pippi Longstocking books, The Red Bird is the story of Matthew and Anna who have very sad days with a mean farmer in Myra until they find a door in a wall that leads to Sunnymead and happiness.

A modern young reader will not stay with this book long. Both its repetitive and lengthy text as well as its dully colored illustrations do not entice one to contine reading past the halfway point.

And although there is a happy ending, the reader is left feeling sorry for Matthew and Anna, not rejoicing at their freedom.

I do not know if Lindgren meant this to be so, but the story has the very strong feeling of being a metaphor for life on earth versus an after-life in heaven.

Unfortunately, not destined to be a classic.