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Title: Basket Moon Publisher: Little, Brown and Company,
USA by Mary Lynn Ray, A lovely story of a young boy growing up in a basketmaking family in the hills of Columbia County, New York. Watching and listening to his father, Big Joe and Mr. Cooens, the boy learns more each season from the men who create the baskets from the splint of the Black Ash tree. How to scout for the best trees, how to pound the logs and prepare the satiny splint weavers. He learns to set out the basket spokes like the rays of the sun and weave the basket, under and over. All the while, the men tell stories they say the trees have told them. Patient listening and watching teaches the boy to carve the handles and rims, insert the handle tails into the body of the basket and lash the rim to make a beautiful, strong basket. He yearns for the time when he will be allowed to accompany his father to the city of Hudson where the carefully woven baskets will be traded for the goods they need. The seasons pass, but still he is not allowed to make the trip to Hudson. Each month, at the time of the full moon, his father goes off without him to the big city, leaving him at home with his mother. The boy is proud of the work they have done and eager to travel to the place where the baskets are traded. Each month he is disappointed to be left behind. At last, when the boy is nine, his father decides he has learned enough to make the trip to the city. They pack up their baskets and travel to the city markets where the baskets are traded for the goods they can't make themselves. The boy fills his mind with the sights and sounds of the city and looks forward to telling his mother about what he has seen. As they are leaving Hudson, they are taunted and laughed at by a group of men who call them hillbillies and bushwackers. The insults made the boy question the worth of the work he knew and loved. For a time, the pleasure he had once gotten from making the baskets was gone. His mother explains that even though some people couldn't understand why they wove the baskets "the trees know what we know". Big Joe tells him "Some learn the language of the wind and sing it into music. Some hear it and write poems. The wind taught us to weave it into baskets." There are those who can't imagine why anyone would weave a basket. Those who learn the patience to weave a good, sturdy basket know what the trees know. They are glad the trees have called their name and summoned them to weave as well. Mary Lyn Ray is the author of several children's books. She has studied American crafts as a Fellow at Winterthur Museum. She lives on an old farm in New Hampshire. Barbara Cooney is a two time winner of the Caldecott Medal and is also the recipient of an American Book Award. Her illustrations bring this story to life.
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