A Family for Old Mill Farm
by Shutta Crum; illustrated by Niki Daly
The lease on our 15th-floor shoebox will expire long after my patience, and I find myself wistful about someday owning another home. Where should it be? In a funky, ethnic urban neighborhood? In the suburbs, where we could spread out some? Or out in the country, where Brett could live his dream of growing organic veggies?
My son has all the answers, fortunately. He thinks we should move in with the bunnies and duckies in this story. He falls completely for the raccoon realtor's sales pitch as he woos different animal families with the charms of a rundown farm:
At Old Mill Farm,
beneath branches hanging low
there's a shimmering pool
with a dragonfly show.Raise your babies here,
where the water lillies grow.
I'm sold! Move me in tomorrow.
Of course, there's also a human family, and their hunt for the perfect home alternates with that wily raccoon, who has a human counterpart in a real estate agent (in a matching orange coat). The human real estate agent's in rare form as she shows off all kinds of outrageous properties, including a lighthouse and a mountaintop manse that gives pregnant Mom the woosies.
No thanks, Dad keeps telling realtor lady. "Perfect!" Say all the animal Moms and Dads. I bet you know where this is headed: toward the farmhouse on Happy Ending Lane. You're right! Daly's watercolors make it clear that these nicey-nice folk don't belong anywhere but the countryside: they look like they jumped from a Land's End catalog, complete with earnest expressions and a floral print dress.
Crum alternates quattrains and couplets, which keeps the meter flowing evenly without becoming tedious, and even the family's growing exasperation is expressed as poetic longing for the open meadow. The lyrical quality makes for a singsong reading, and the frolicsome little boy in the story drove home the point that this could, someday soon, be my son.
Rating: *\*\*\
I was kind of hoping for the farm on a cliffside lighthouse.
Posted by: brettdl | April 16, 2007 at 05:20 AM
Daly always does interesting stuff. Thanks. I'll have to look for this one.
Posted by: jules | April 16, 2007 at 06:44 AM