by Moe Zilla

Created on: August 15, 2010

It's the only children's picture book I know that was written and illustrated by twins! During the great depression, there was a little girl was afraid of a large bull that she couldn't see. Decades later her daughter, Frances Arrington, grew up to be an elementary school teacher in South Carolina. Frances turned her mother's story into a children's picture book, while her twin sister Aileen drew the book's illustrations. It's got one of the strangest book jackets I've ever seen - where both the author and the illustrator look exactly the same!

"Mary Wilson had never seen Stella's bull," the story opens. "She had never even seen Stella..." But she's afraid to go swimming in Black Creek, since it's over by fields where Stella's bull likes to roam. Plus, she's also heard that Stella's bull is crazy. But unfortunately, one day one of her school books ends up on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

It's a surprisingly long story, detailing all the thoughts in the little girl's head about how dangerous that animal must be. But eventually there's a sudden shift, the night her school book was in Stella's field, "and Mary Wilson was in left field..." She hears a rustling behind her, screams that it's Stella's bull, and half the children run in a stampede with her. It turns out that it was just a harmless cow, and the event triggers a change in the girl's mind. She wasn't going back to school again without her school book - or without at least having seen Stella's bull.

I found the psychological details a little angsty, but it does make a powerful story. And the illustrations are colorful and realistic, almost like actual glimpses of life in the 1930s. Aileen Arrington draws Mary Wilson in lots of pensive poses, and tries to capture the cautious mood of the story. Her last illustration seems to capture a special moment, showing the little girl under enormous shady clouds in the sky. But Frances Arrington spends a lot of time to build up to the book's final confrontation.

"...Mary Wilson froze. Something big and dark was moving closer and closer..."

The girl bolts for the ditch, and then a funny thing happened. A minute passes, and then another, and the bull doesn't do anything. "he wasn't tearing down fences. He was standing there minding his own business." And the wind blows across the grass...

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