Product Description

Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman’s testament to vision, passion, and destiny is beautifully complemented by folk art-inspired paintings by the virtuoso Bagram Ibatoulline.


There once lived a farmer whose heart
glowed like a hot wood stove with the love of animals.

No one loved animals more than the farmer. All day long, he and his three sons toiled on the farm, singing while they worked. The eldest son favored coachman’s songs; the second son, songs of the sea; the youngest son, tunes about a traveling fiddler; and the farmer, always, songs of the barnyard. But when a terrible drought befalls the land, the farmer must sell his livestock and move to a tiny cottage with only a hedge around it. Though he is heartbroken to lose his animals, he and his sons soon discover something remarkable about their hedge - and something unique about each person who trims its branches.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1103246 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-11
• Released on: 2003-08-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3-There are no surprises in this gentle story, but there is ample assurance that following the dictates of one's heart is the surest path to personal fulfillment. In classic folkloric tradition, Fleischman tells of a happy farmer and his three sons who sing merrily as they go about their chores. When they fall on hard times, they are forced to sell their livestock and move to a small cottage surrounded by a hedge. While trimming it, the farmer begins to see shapes of animals within it and adjusts his clipping so that they become visible to all. As the boys become old enough to set out into the world, he cuts the hedge down. Each young man watches it grow and trims it, finding the shape of his own dreams: a carriage and team of horses, a sailing vessel, a fiddler playing for dancers. Thus, each is pointed toward his true vocation. In a conclusion that seems as inevitable as it is satisfying, the sons pitch in to buy their father the livestock he needs to return to the animal husbandry that is his soul's delight. Ibatoulline's watercolor-and-gouache illustrations, inspired by 19th-century American folk-art paintings, are the perfect complement to this simple allegory. Simply lovely.
Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
K-Gr. 3. Lush paintings reminiscent of nineteenth-century folk art illustrate this original tale about discovering one's true calling. When a drought forces a farmer to sell his land and animals, he moves with his three sons to a cottage with a hedge that, when clipped, seems to turn into animal shapes. As his sons grow old enough to seek a trade, the farmer encourages each to turn to the "magic" hedge for answers. As each trims the hedge, an occupation emerges. Years later, the successful sons return to their father, who admits that the hedge simply mirrored their own hearts. The story's elements don't always flow together, and there is some disconnection between the message of self-determination and the quiet paintings, rendered in a flat, decorative style, which portray the hedge as more magical than the text suggests. Children able to make the required leaps, however, will enjoy the mystery in the miraculous hedge and its soothsaying shapes. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Bagram Ibatoulline was born in Russia, graduated from the State Academic Institute of Arts in Moscow, and has worked in the fields of fine arts, graphic arts, mural design, and textile design. He has illustrated CROSSING by Philip Booth, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, and THE NIGHTINGALE by Hans Christian Andersen as retold by Stephen Mitchell. He says, "As I was working on THE ANIMAL HEDGE, I was most influenced by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American folk art. I appreciate the naiveté of those untrained painters."


From the Trade Paperback edition.