Author: Alice McLerran
Status: Out of Print
A sensitive, poetic text inspires handsome, semi-abstract college illustrations, in this tale of a little bird that brings a renewal of life and happiness to a lonely, barren mountain.
Reviews:
“Among recently published books touching on valentine themes of love and happiness, a picture book, The Mountain That Loved A Bird, by Alice McLerran has great appeal. Brilliant collages for which Eric Carle is famous around the world set the tone for the poetic interpretation McLerran, a young archeologist, gives to the physical changes that take place in rocks and earth.
An isolated stone mountain without water, soil or life of any kind is visited by Joy, a bird. The mountain begs her to stay, but she couldn’t survive there and only promises to visit next year.
Since the bird’s lifespan is short, it is Joy’s descendants who visit year after year. But the mountain’s loneliness increases until it weeps. Tears grow into streams that finally split rocks. When Joy drops a seed that begins to grow, all things change until, centuries later, one Joy finds the tree where she can build a nest and stay.”
– by Martha Bennett King, The Denver Post, January 26, 1986
“The Mountain That Loved A Bird, inspired by author Alice McLerran’s fascination with archeological changes over long periods of time, is a parable about life—the story of the friendship between a small bird and a barren mountain. Eric Carle’s vivid collage illustrations are some of his finest works—take a careful look at the endpapers.”
– The Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 1985
