The Humpherys Family

The Secret River

Record Added: 9/29/2010
Illustrator Leonard Weisgard
Setting United States
Topic Fantasy
Publisher Charles Scribner's Sons
ISBN B0012KNQTE   Year 1971
Age 9-12   Pages 64
 
"Child, I have not breathed this to a living soul, but I will tell you. There are big fish in the secret river. Oh my, the fish! Catfish, perch, bream, mudfish and garfish. Especially catfish."
"Is the secret river far away?"
"Nobody knows. I will tell you this--you will be home by nightfall."
"How will I find it?"
"Just follow your nose. You will know the river when you see it."

A children's story by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of "The Yearling". This work was found among her papers and was published after the author's death.

There’s just not enough…not enough money, not enough food, not enough fish for her daddy to sell at the market. Hard times have come to the forest, but Calpurnia wants to turn them back into soft times. With her little dog Buggy Horse and a tip from old Mother Albirtha, the wisest person in the forest, Calpurnia finds a secret river and uses the pink paper roses from her hair to catch enough beautiful catfish to feed the whole swamp land —with some left over for Daddy to sell. When she tries to find the river again the next day, Mother Albirtha tells her, “Child, sometimes a thing happens once, and does not ever happen anymore….You caught catfish when catfish were needed…you will not find the river again.”

This story by the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Yearling and literary icon Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is about living in a time of want, yet it is overflowing with riches—stunning language, mystical happenings, wondrous, wondrous artwork. Beautiful in all ways that a book can be beautiful, this unforgettable picture book is a classic in the making.

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