Saturday, October 21, 2017

The King of the Birds



Writing children's books about famous people is an interesting endeavor. This one takes Flannery O'Connor's childhood interest in chickens and peacocks and turns it into a little story.



The illustrations are charming. (The endpapers are pictured above.)


The wit is endearing. (Above is the peahen's response to the peacock's attention.)


But the idea that "life was a little too quite" is a refrain of the text. The claim that Flannery O'Connor was interested in attention (even when she was a child) is just plain old off-putting. She was shy! She was interested in oddity, but not, I think, for the attention that it brought her.


Apologies for the quality of these photographs.

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