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Magpie’s Missing Spoon

by Michael Bradley

Everyone knows that magpies like to collect bright objects, and the titular magpie in the first picture book from Renfrew, Ontario’s Michael Bradley (who is not yet 20 years old) is no exception. When startled by Jackdaw’s greeting, Magpie drops her shiny spoon into a brook. Discovering that neither magpies nor jackdaws have any talent for swimming, Magpie and her friend accost various other creatures as they pass by, hoping that someone else will dive into the brook and retrieve the spoon. After a number of disappointments, Water Rat finally gets it out, and our hoarding heroine retires happily to her nest to snuggle up with her treasure.

This lost-and-found storyline has a natural appeal to small children, as does the repetitive pattern used by Bradley to tell his tale: each passing animal is requested in the same words to search for the spoon. While the adult reader may find this a bit tiresome, young listeners will happily anticipate and repeat the words. Amusement is to be found in Bradley’s visual characterizations of the various creatures who try to get back the spoon. In simple line-drawings casually rendered in primary colours, he introduces Bullfrog, Crayfish, Gosling, Toad, and others. A few lines suffice to evoke a personality: Water Rat’s whiskers perk up when he undertakes the task, and droop when he emerges from the brook.

One jarring note is the excuse used by Otter for her failure to retrieve the spoon – she has forgotten her glasses and can’t see well. The degree to which the natural behaviour of the animals is combined with human characteristics (such as talking) is tricky in a book like this. Consistency would have Otter find some more natural excuse as the other animals do, rather than bringing in that humanized detail. Aside from this small misstep (which few kids will even notice), Magpie’s Missing Spoon is a pleasant fable, and a good beginning for Bradley.

 

Reviewer: Gwyneth Evans

Publisher: Pipsqueak Publishing

DETAILS

Price: $12.95

Page Count: 32 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-0-97399-625-8

Released: May

Issue Date: 2010-6

Categories: Children and YA Non-fiction, Picture Books

Age Range: 2-5