by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 02, 2010

Eve Bunting was 52 years old. She'd been born in Ireland in 1928, but found a career in America as an author of children's books. In 1980, she'd switched to a new publisher - Clarion - and wrote a picture book about Ireland called "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning." Interestingly, for its illustrations she turned to 31-year-old Jan Brett - who would go on to have a lustrous career writing children's books of her own!

Brett sketches the Irish children - and their dog - with realistic but happy expressions. This makes it fun to wonder if Bunting's story gave Brett some ideas for the stories she'd later write about children. Several of Brett's later stories, like "The Trouble with Trolls," are also set in exotic European locations - and also feature a loyal pet dog! But this book must've been more challenging, since its illustrations were printed as black and white sketches tinted with green and yellow, instead of the lavish colors Brett would use in her later books.

Bunting uses a classic story-telling technique: contributing lots of colorful details. A little boy named Jamie sleeps in the same bed with "his big brother, Kevin, and his bigger brother, Sean." Remembering that it's St. Patrick's Day, Jamie climbs over his sleeping brothers - and their green-and-yellow checkered bedspread - to go downstairs to the kitchen. "The stairs were cold on his bare feet," Bunting writes evokatively. "The kitchen was cold too, the fireplace full of dead ashes, like chalk."

I like how she finds a compelling character and story from a very simple premise: the boy wants to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade. He sees the sashes that his father and brothers will wear - but he's been told he's too young to march in the parade. Taking the family pet - a sheepdog named Nell - Jamie walks out into his village and then heads towards a nearby mountain. His purpose is a mystery, though his motivations are clear. And along the way, he meets the neighboring villagers, including a farmer with a wheelbarrow full of fresh eggs still warm from the hen!

Some of the neighbors give him food to eat, and one even gives him a flag to wave at the St. Patrick's Day parade. But the book's really celebrating the determination of young Jamie, and he thinks to himself "Wasn't this the parade, this very minute, and him in it?" The official parade was supposed to march all the way to Acorn Hill, but before the parade has even started, Jamie's marched up to Acorn Hill and back all by himself. That's what he did on St. Patrick's Day in the morning, although he doesn't tell anyone in his family.

But it's obvious, from Jan Brett's drawing, that he's shared his triumph with Nell the sheep dog!

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.