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Emily |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0440417406 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
This fictionalized encounter between Emily Dickinson and a young neighbor is, like a Dickinson sonnet, a quiet gem: unassuming upon first glance, it is in fact deeply lustrous, with new facets becoming apparent the longer one looks. The narrator and protagonist is a child who has just moved into the house across the street from "the Myth." She accompanies her mother to Emily's house one day, where she makes her a gift of lily bulbs and receives a poem in return. Bedard's unnamed narrator speaks with the piercing clarity and insight particular to sensitive children. As she contemplates her fear of meeting the reclusive poet, she realizes that "perhaps the lady in the yellow house is also afraid"; she intuitively responds to the hidden life mysteriously contained in the dull, dead bulbs; and she makes a simple but... |
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Sitting Ducks |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613455487 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
Bedard pits the iconic, yellow-billed white ducks featured in his posters against a carnivorous world in this alligator-y allegory. At first, the waterfowl don't seem to have a prayer. They hatch on a conveyor belt in a vast alligator-run factory, then their predators ship them off to Ducktown, where friendly placards encourage them to "Eat a Lot" and "Fatten Up." (Bedard doesn't specify how the victims vanish from their seeming utopia, but alligator restaurants proudly serve duck soup.) Things change after a soft-hearted alligator adopts a duck and lets his pet in on a secret that could save Ducktown: physically fit birds can fly to freedom. Bedard, who styles his unlikely pair as soul mates, practices the same understatement seen in Tim Egan's Friday Night at Hodges' Cafe. His story can be read as a comment on... |
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Sitting Ducks |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0698118979 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Bedard pits the iconic, yellow-billed white ducks featured in his posters against a carnivorous world in this alligator-y allegory. At first, the waterfowl don't seem to have a prayer. They hatch on a conveyor belt in a vast alligator-run factory, then their predators ship them off to Ducktown, where friendly placards encourage them to "Eat a Lot" and "Fatten Up." (Bedard doesn't specify how the victims vanish from their seeming utopia, but alligator restaurants proudly serve duck soup.) Things change after a soft-hearted alligator adopts a duck and lets his pet in on a secret that could save Ducktown: physically fit birds can fly to freedom. Bedard, who styles his unlikely pair as soul mates, practices the same understatement seen in Tim Egan's Friday Night at Hodges' Cafe. His story can be read as a comment on... |
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Wolf of Gubbio |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0773732500 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Booklist
Gr. 2-4, with an adult. With the same hushed, magical cadences he used in Emily 1993), Bedard once again tells a famous tale through the eyes of a child. In this picture book for older readers, a boy looks out over the walled hill town of Gubbio, waiting for a great wolf to appear at his door. As he watches, he recalls why the hungry wolf stopped terrorizing the town. He remembers when Poverello, the little friar (St. Francis of Assisi) came to Gubbio, heard the villagers' stories, sought out the creature, and blessed it and made peace, promising it sustenance if it mended its ways. Murray Kimber's paintings have the hieratic geometry of stained glass, all angles and forms enriched with sun-drenched russets and golds. The huge gray wolf sits starkly against those colors, as occasional small black-and-white sketches... |
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The Clay Ladies |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887765734 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Loosely based on the lives of sculptors Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, who lived and worked together for some 40 years beginning in 1920, Bedard's (The Divide) story touches on art's healing capacity. A boy's visit to his grandmother and her cozy living room frames and foreshadows the main narrative in which the grandmother describes her girlhood memories of her neighbors, nicknamed "the Clay Ladies": "They were not at all like women I had known. They wore baggy trousers and men's stiff shoes, and one had her hair clipped short." Her first encounter with the women comes when she finds an injured bird, which she brings to the Clay Ladies at their outwardly dilapidated home, a former church now transformed into a spectacular studio. Florence agrees to care for the bird and invites the girl to come back during... |
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Stained Glass |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887766021 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Bedard's (Redwork) carefully constructed novel is rooted in mysticism, but its heartfelt scenes are grounded in reality. Charles is hiding in St. Bartholomew's church instead of going to his piano lesson when the caretaker accidentally shatters a stained glass window. Hearing a moan, Charles discovers a waif covered in bits of glass, hurt and without any memory. He checks on her the next day and ends up traveling around the city, trying to help her remember who she is. But something's strange: she never hungers or tires, and she has an uncanny ability to disturb "the dust that had settled over the inner chambers of him." Making metaphorical use of the caretaker's attempt to reassemble the window, the author pieces into the plot Charles's memories, episodes from the tragic life of the caretaker (a former... |
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The Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0887766528 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-Known as the Liao-chai, these enchanting stories were first collected by a scholar named Pu Sung-ling a century before the Grimms began their work in Europe. Wildly popular in China but little known in the West, they draw on the supernatural or unusual to cast their spell. For example, in "Planting a Pear Tree," a greedy fruit vendor watches his wares magically disappear after he refuses to give a poor Taoist priest a pear. In "The Tiger of Chao-cheng," the featured animal takes care of an old woman whose son he had killed, providing for her throughout her remaining days, and then grieving fiercely when she dies. In "The Glass Eyes," a boy steals from a temple and must make amends when he figures out that his uncle is being punished for his deed. In "The Painted Wall," a young man finds himself in... |
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The Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
088776701X |
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| Availability: |
This title is not currently available. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-Known as the Liao-chai, these enchanting stories were first collected by a scholar named Pu Sung-ling a century before the Grimms began their work in Europe. Wildly popular in China but little known in the West, they draw on the supernatural or unusual to cast their spell. For example, in "Planting a Pear Tree," a greedy fruit vendor watches his wares magically disappear after he refuses to give a poor Taoist priest a pear. In "The Tiger of Chao-cheng," the featured animal takes care of an old woman whose son he had killed, providing for her throughout her remaining days, and then grieving fiercely when she dies. In "The Glass Eyes," a boy steals from a temple and must make amends when he figures out that his uncle is being punished for his deed. In "The Painted Wall," a young man finds himself in... |
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William Blake |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
088776763X |
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| Availability: |
Your order will ship upon release. |
Review
Praise for The Painted Wall:
“…balanced and elegant….”
— Globe and Mail
Praise for Stained Glass:
“…Bedard has established himself as a master at examining the source of creative inspiration.”
— Quill & Quire
Book Description
Journey back to the 1700s to meet one of the most fascinating people in history. Dreamer, craftsman, poet, madman, and genius — William Blake. Born in 1757 in London, as a boy he apprenticed as an engraver and began a career that would include masterpieces of art.
Blake lived during times of incredible change and upheaval, including the Gordon Riots and the French Revolution. Spiritualism and the allure of magic were being replaced by... |
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Vuela, Pato, Vuela! |
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| Author: |
Michael Bedard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
(Hardcover) - Spanish |
| ISBN: |
8466725490 |
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| Availability: |
This title is not currently available. |
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