"What was the first song ever sung?" asks a little boy, and each answer he gets sings with the spirit of the giver. "A seed song, a sprout song, a rain song, a harvest song," says his grandfather. "A rope song, a swing song, a jumping, twirling, leap song," his sister is certain.
Ed Young has set Laura Melmed's lyric text in ancient Japan, populated it with a wandering mountain people, and endowed each speaker with an animal spirit as well as a human form. As you read this magical book, you can almost feel the heat of the evening fire and see its sparks flash up into the night. This is storytelling as it must have begun long, long ago.
