William, his brother and sister, and his parents lived on a farm on the prairies. The family was poor and winter on the prairies was very long and cold. This is the book about William's winter, the work he did and the games he played.
William had many chores to do – bringing in the firewood, axing the ice on the cattle's drinking water, chipping the icy hay from the stacks he had made in summer. He had to feed the animals, catch wandering chickens, and at night try to keep warm in a cold bed in a freezing room.
But William and his friends also played games. They cleared and flooded their own hockey rinks and played with sticks and shin-pads they had made themselves. The flat prairie land was perfect for such games as as Fox and Geese. The huge drifts that built up around bushes, as the wind blew the snow across the vast prairie wastes, were so deep apartments several stories high could be tunneled through them. And when there was no one to play with, William could skate alone down miles of bog ditches.
William Kurelek, whose paintings hang in major galleries and museums in the US and Canada, has told the story of his own childhood in simple text and 20 magnificent full-color paintings. It is a true story, in a unique, harsh setting that began for William when the crows flew south and ended when they returned to announce the coming of spring.
Since its first publication in 1973, this book has sold more than 250,000 copies in nine countries and it has won more awards than any other Canadian book.
