Why the Tides Ebb and Flow. Illustrated by Marc Brown.
1979 · Boston
by Bowden, Joan Chase.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, (1979). Royal octavo, illustrated cream cloth (hardcover), illustrated endpapers, unpaginated [40] pp. Fine, in a Near-Fine, mylar protected dust jacket. From dust jacket: Twice every day the sea laps up and covers the shore. And twice each day it flows out over the shining sand. All this would never have come to be if the Sky Spirit had taken a moment to think. But he didn’t, and by that the stubborn old woman tricked him. Old Woman had no hut. One morning she went to the Sky Spirit and asked for one, but he was far too busy. So she bided her time and asked again, this time for only a rock to shelter her. “Take one,” he answered carelessly. That was just what the stubborn old woman wanted to hear. Gleefully she climbed into her stewpot and set sail on the great green ocean. And this is the story that she tells how she came by someone who would love and protect her, someone who would keep her company, someone who would build her a hut -- and why the tides ebb and flow. Wanting something in a busy world, whether it be of Sky Spirits or preoccupied parents, is a familiar situation. Marc Brown’s drawings expand on this with warmth and strength as the feisty, dauntless old woman bargains with the Sky Spirit against the dramatic backdrop of the ocean swirling down and away forever. (Inventory #: 3718bd)