Quick Review: The Crow-Girl, by Bodil Bredsdorff

I was scanning the children section at my local library and came upon this book. First the titled intrigued me, and than I picked it up solely based on the cover. All those soft tones, that slight breeze that seems to be coming gently from the sea, through the grass, and that lonely girl just staring at the horizon. It made me think that this story would be soft like a whisper, like feathers against my skin.And I wasn't completely wrong.

The Crow-Girl is popular Danish children novelist Bodil Bredsdorff's first book to be translated in English. It tells the story of a small girl who lives in a small cottage by the sea with her aging, and dying, grandmother. She keeps the fire in the hearth going, she picks up driftwood and snails and kelp and mussels for their dinner. She takes care of things. When her grandmother dies, she sets out from the cottage to see what's beyond it, to meet people. 

The Crow-Girl is a tale, told in a sparse prose, about family, the ones we are born in and and the ones we make for ourselves. That people can be hurt, or they can be hurtful, or both at the same time. But mostly it teaches us that joy can spring out of sorry and pain. It's a quick sweet read. I was left with small images of white cottages with smoking chimneys and sheep and the ocean coming and going, coming and going. It made me smile.