REVIEW & GIVEAWAY: Crow Made a Friend by Margaret Peot

Posted by Carrie

Crow Made a Friend

by Margaret Peot

Children’s Fiction

Book Description

Try, try again is the lesson Crow teaches beginning readers in this picture book reader. Crow was all alone. But like all crows, he was very clever. Using autumn leaves for wings, sticks for the body and a crab apple for the head, Crow made a friend! But winter winds blew in, destroying his creation. Undaunted, Crow fashioned another bird friend out of snow but could not prevent it from melting in the warm spring sun. Alone again, Crow heard the caw, caw, caw of a real, live bird. Together they built a nest and by summer, Crow had a family. This warm, satisfying story, celebrates perseverance and ingenuity.

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MY THOUGHTS: 4 OUT OF 5 FLEURS DE LIS

My first grader and I read this book together! It’s the perfect length for a bedtime story, not too wordy and with only a sentence or two on each page.

This book is about a crow who’s lonely, and tries to make himself friends. The crow fails a couple of times, but he never quits. I like that the lesson of perseverance is taught in the book in a way that’s not super blatant or detracts from the story.

The reason I took away one star is that I felt the ending was a little rushed and not something kids could understand–crow meets another crow and then suddenly there is a family? As an adult, I got it I suppose, but my seven year old was like, “Mom, where did the family come from?”

My child’s favorite part was definitely the gorgeous illustrations. He loved pointing out the crows’ beautiful and shiny feathers, especially on the last page when they were all together.

Crow Made a Friend is a super book for beginning readers and one your child will be happy to share with you.

About the Author

Margaret is an artist, writer and costume painter. Margaret has two new books out in 2015, Stencil Craft (F&W) and an early reader picture book, Crow Made a Friend (Holiday House). Margaret’s book Inkblot: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity (Boyds Mills 2011) was awarded a Eureka! Silver Medal for non-fiction children’s books. She is also the author of The Successful Artist’s Career Guide (F&W 2012), Alternative Art Journals (F&W 2012), and Make Your Mark (Chronicle Books, 2004), voted one of Library Journal’s best how-to books of 2004.

An avid believer that art making can be for everyone, Margaret has presented art workshops with cancer survivors, elders, children, parent and teen groups, writers, nurses and caregivers, at The Creative Center at University Settlement’s Creative Aging conferences, and their Artist-in-Residence Training program, with EngAGE Utah, at Gilda’s Club, The Huntsman Cancer Institute, Operation Exodus in NYC, and at Miami University’s Scripps center with Dr. Like Lokon, and Opening Minds Through Art.