The Animal Family: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

This is the book I wish I had memories of my mother reading to me.

In reality, I don't have any memories of her reading to me, but to be fair, she worked her butt off and was often gone in the evenings before bed because she worked second shift as a nurse. I digress.

This is the story of a hunter. And then a hunter and a mermaid. And then a hunter and a mermaid and a bear. And then a hunter and a mermaid and a bear and a lynx. And then a hunter and a mermaid and a bear and a lynx and a little boy. It's sweet and simple. It's simple enough that a child understands and that an adult feels.

I was meandering along, just enjoying the lyrical flow of the book but feeling like I was going to give it three stars. I pegged it for one of those books where nostalgia seems to play a dominant role in the high rating(s). And then I hit the part where the mermaid "began to talk, and to talk, and to talk as she had never talked before." Oh, my heart.

When it storms for the people, no matter how terribly it storms, the storm isn't real - swim down a few strokes and it's calm there, down there it's always calm. And death is no different, if it's someone else who dies. We say, 'Swim away from it'; we swim away from everything.

But on land it's different. The storm's real, here, and the red leaves, and the branches when they're bare all winter. It all changes and never stops changing, and I'm here with nowhere to swim to, no way ever to leave it or forget it. No, the land's better! The land's better!

I, too, choose the land.

4 Stars