Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sherwood Walks Home

Sherwood Walks Home
James Flora ~ Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966


It is so gorgeous outside that I decided to fling open the doors of my office and flip open a copy of another Flora and dream of taking a walk myself... only without the fish attached to my butt.

Let us imagine for a moment that you are a wind-up bear in love with a certain boy... and that certain boy accidentally abandons you in the park during a rain storm and all you want to do is walk home to said boy except that there is nobody there to wind you up. Well then, you would be in the exact same predicament as our hero, Sherwood.

All night long Sherwood sat in the park. It was cold and lonely. Once, in the middle of the night, he saw two eyes staring at him. "Please come and wind me so I can walk home," Sherwood begged. But the eyes just blinked and disappeared. Sherwood never did see who owned them. In the morning the rain stopped and the sun peeked through the trees. Sherwood felt much better. "It won't be long until someone will come and wind me up," he said to himself. And sure enough someone did.

With his wind-up wind flowing, Sherwood makes a mad dash for home. Along the way he gets snuggled by a big momma bear, half eaten by an angry fish, and starts a conga line of madness that doesn't end until at last he is reunited with his certain boy. I will admit, on the first page we see the fish, the thing is sporting some evil eyes, and they scare the willies out of my dear boy.... Still, he loves this book. As do I. I'm only missing four Flora kids' books at this point. I'm just hoping the copies that were meant for me don't end up in a garbage dump somewhere. Poo.

Also by:
Pishtosh Bullwash and Wimple
Kangaroo for Christmas
Stewed Goose
Great Green Turkey Creek Monster
Grandpa's Farm
Leopold the See-Through Crumbpicker
The Day the Cow Sneezed
Grandpa's Ghost Stories
Grandpa's Witched Up Christmas
Little Hatchy Hen
My Friend Charlie
The Fabulous Firework Family

3 comments:

  1. I am such a fan of kids books and thus I am a fan of your site!

    I just discovered Dahlov Ipcar's childrens books....thought I would share this rather obscure author/illustrator.
    thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ack! I've never seen one of these book you speak of... must search now.... wanna write a reader's write on one?

    http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/2009/01/great-readers-write.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, I will consider that. I actually haven't read any of Ipcar's books. I was researching homeschooling curriculum and I found a great list here:

    http://www.mfwbooks.com/k_read.htm


    So, I started looking up some of the out-of-print books and found some gems. Actually some of them are back in print anyway.
    -Jenny

    ReplyDelete