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Abel's Island (Newbery Award & Honor Books)
Abel's Island - Newbery Award & Honor Books Author:William Steig One summer day, newlywed mice Abel and Amanda are out for apicnic in the woods when they are caught in a sudden storm--a "full-fledged,screaming hurricane" to be precise. As they take refuge in a cave, a wind scoopsup Amanda's scarf, and Abel foolishly lunges from safety to retrieve it. So begins William Steig's Newbery Honor Book Abel's Island,... more » theensuing adventures of this rather foppish mouse as he comes head to head with nature. Amazingly, Abel is swept up in a stream, then a river, then eventually marooned on an island (about 12,000 tails long).He is sure that his rescue is imminent: "It's certainly gotten around that Abelard Hassam di Chirico Flint, of the Mossville Flints, is missing," thesociety mouse speculates. But he is not so lucky. What will this intelligent, imaginative rodent do to get off the island and back to his belovedAmanda? He busies himself with finding ways to get to shore (including bridges, boats, catapults, stepping stones, and gliders); figuring out what he should eat (everything from mulberries to roasted seeds); andinvestigating where he should take shelter (in a rotten log). As the weeks andmonths go by, he misses his books, his paintings, his comfortable stuffedchair, his stylish clothes (now damp, torn, and lumpy), but above all his precious wife Amanda, whom he thinks about constantly. As the mousefaces his new life Robinson Crusoe-style, Abel discovers what it's like to bein tune with the natural world as well as his true nature, andwhat it's like to return, fortified, to his real home and to the armsof the one he loves. Along the way, readers can't help but rediscover thejoys of being alive. (Ages 8 and older, but an engaging read-aloud foryounger children, too) --Karin Snelson« less