Crawe! Corvids of the Anglo-Celtic Isles and their Folklore

by K.S. Whittle

Crawe! Corvids of the Anglo-Celtic Isles and their Folklore is a 100+ page book exploring our 8 species of corvids and their folklore from around Britain and Ireland.

Genres: Nonfiction, Folklore

107 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2023

Reviews

[Bookshire Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well. Good things first. The high rating is mainly for the book as an artifact because the illustration and book design are stunning. A lot of work went into it, that much is obvious and I am very happy I could support it on Kickstarter. I also appreciated the wealth of interesting facts about corvids.

HOWEVER. The text is swamped by mistakes. Consistently throughout, “it’s” is used instead of “its”, and there are such gems like “her’s” or “had had studied”. The number of run sentences is incredibly annoying. It’s such a shame - and easily avoidable one - given the effort that went into that book.

The editor of the book is one Tom Smith. Dear Mr Smith I BEG YOU, do not edit any book ever again. EVER.

[Finch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an extremely pretty book, both the cover and illustrations are gorgeous and I'll be opening the book to look at them again, but the book itself is poorly written and I genuinely wonder if it was edited at all. There are a lot of punctuation mistakes, missing commas, run on sentences, and misplaced punctuation including one comma placed in the middle of a word! There are also missing words throughout, as well as the wrong words being used (eg. were instead of where, and the most egregious one being though instead of thou). The typesetting also changes randomly throughout.

I'm also a little doubtful of some of the claims made in the book, but haven't verified them so who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
Again, gorgeous artwork, but I can't say I'd recommend the book itself to anyone.

[Fiona Hodgkiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Whittle frequently has her stall at alternative markets. I'm delighted to have read this book. For me it is as much about her art work, as the information. This is a quick read but you may still learn something. I didn't know magpies have passed the mirror test. A beautiful hard back book with gold detail and the illustrations are uniquely fascinating.

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the concept. Some of the information was interesting, but it also seemed repetitive and rather dryly presented. I also found some typesetting errors and a few sentences that I would have edited differently on this side of the pond (which is not really meant as criticism, just the type of observation I can't turn off.) The artwork is lovely and was the real reason for purchasing the book.

[Rachael Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning illustrations with some interesting facts and folklore.

[Freya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated and full of interesting facts and tidbits.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The word raven originated from the old English hræfn, the old Norse hrafn and the old high German raban. As with other members of the corvid family, the words used to name ravens are often onomatopoeic to their harsh course cry, the name raven has changed very little except for the spelling since then. The raven's cry of 'cra cra' sounds similar to the Latin word crās which means tomorrow where we also get our word 'procrastinate', which once led people to believe in the prophetic nature of the bird.

Sometimes a book is more than just words on a page and that is very much the case here. I have been lucky enough to meet Katie Whittle at the Liverpool Alternative Bizarre and can thoroughly recommend both this book and her artwork in general.

Katie clearly has a love of birds and this fascinating book dives into the mythology and folklore surrounding Corvids. Think crows, jackdaws, rooks, ravens. Birds with dark omens attached. If you don't know much about Corvids, you might not know that they also include the Chough, Magpies and the Eurasian Jay, which more colourful than their relatives. They however do not escape the attention of history and have equal amounts of lore and tales as old as time.

This is going to be a treasured addition to my collection and I will end up dipping back into it from time to time to refresh myself with the amazing history of these birds. 5 stars.

[Clemency Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a Christmas present from a family member, who knows I love crows and mythology almost equally!
The first thing that struck me about this book was the beautiful design! The cloth hardback is foiled in an intricate crow design, and there is golden edge printing with subtle feather patterns. The illustrations on the endpapers and in the book are second to none.
The author has clearly done her research too, and there are some fascinating stories about the different members of the crow family.
I would definitely recommend this book!

[NarielLimbaear · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifull and cool book if you love corvids !!

[Dianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful addition to my book shelves. The illustrations are gorgeous, I love picking it up to look through.

[Bee Teddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a beautifully illustrated book. The actual grammar and writing wasn’t great, made it quite hard to read at times. Content was good fun though