Sparrows in a New Don Freeman Book

Remember Corduroy, the bear who lost a button and found a friend? When Don Freeman, creator of the much-beloved little bear, died in 1978, his wife, Lydia worked with his former editor on a book Don had left unfinished: The Sparrows of Stonehenge. The project never made it to press, but Don's son Roy Freeman picked up the work and it's in print now. It's a time-capsule of sorts, offering a misty, somewhat haunting view into a picture book creator's mind. There's the allure of the henge itself, of course, standing in its green Wiltshire meadowscape, raising questions in the minds of viewers.

The delight of this book from out of the past lies in the fact that it does one thing that picture books do better than any other art form. That is to say, it endows the world's smallest denizens with the ability to answer our biggest questions. We turn to sparrows in this book, starting with Farrow the First, the ancestral sparrow whose descendants still swoop and chirp around the stones.

The collective third person viewpoint of the sparrow family drives the story, which includes the lovely little conceit that the sparrows directed the building of the henge. They even name it. If this places us present-day humans in the peripheral role of slightly confused witnesses to history, while small avian participants sing their hearts out—well, really, that's not so far from the truth.  

And if it all feels as if it's come straight out of a sketchbook, it has. Of interest to Freeman fans and children's lit enthusiasts.