Clever Crow

by Cynthia C. DeFelice, S.D. Schindler (Illustrator)

Clever crow sits high up in his tree, surveying the lay of the land, looking for that shiny something that might make a perfect addition to his nest. Soon he spies Emma's mother's keys, grabs 'em, flies up to his tree. Now what can Emma do? Digging deep into her box of secret stuff, she finds something even shinier than the keys, something she'll use to call that bird's bluff. But crow won't give up easily.... Nimble rhymes and mischevious art make this a shiny prize of a book.

Genres: Picture Books, Birds, Childrens

30 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Cynthia DeFelice is the author of many bestselling titles for young readers, including the novels Wild Life, The Ghost of Cutler Creek, Signal, and The Missing Manatee, as well as the picture books, One Potato, Two Potato, and Casey in the Bath. Her books have been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award and listed as American Library Association Notable Children's Books and Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, among numerous other honors.

Cynthia was born in Philadelphia in 1951. As a child, she was always reading. Summer vacations began with a trip to the bookstore, where she and her sister and brothers were allowed to pick out books for their summer reading. “To me,” she says, “those trips to the bookstore were even better than the rare occasions when we were given a quarter and turned loose at the penny-candy store on the boardwalk.” Cynthia has worked as a bookseller, a barn painter, a storyteller, and a school librarian.

When asked what she loves best about being an author, she can’t pick just one answer: “I love the feeling of being caught up in the lives of the characters I am writing about. I enjoy the challenge of trying to write as honestly as I can, and I find enormous satisfaction in hearing from readers that something I wrote touched them, delighted them, made them shiver with fear or shake with laughter, or think about something new.” Cynthia and her husband live in Geneva, New York.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/cynthi...

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The crow steals the keys and Emma has to get them back using her own guile to outwit him into returning them. Let the games begin.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nature’s collector

[The Brothers · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the hustle and bustle to get out of the house a mother discovers a "clever" crow has absconded with her car keys. Her daughter figures out to trick the bird into giving the keys back with a shiny ball of tin foil. Told in rhyming verse.

Illustrations are good.

[Becky Dutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shows the cleverness of crows.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good story about a battle of wills between a theiving crow and a little girl. Would give it 5 stars but it's a bit long.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the rhyming text and the noises that can be repeated with kids during a read aloud. It also introduces the idea of hoarding.