cover image The Red Bird

The Red Bird

Astrid Lindgren. Arthur A. Levine Books, $16.95 (48pp) ISBN 978-0-439-62796-2

Marit Tarnqvist reimagines Astrid Lindgren's wistful tale of two children ""left alone in the world"" and The Red Bird that gives them hope (first published in 1959, and here translated from the Swedish by Patricia Crampton). Fans of Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking tales may miss the author's sense of humor here, but T rnqvist's pen-and-ink and watercolor wash fluidly charts the children's transition from a sepia-toned, colorless world of poverty to the many-hued meadow filled with birch trees they discover, thanks to the red bird. .