THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY

Huck’s and Lobel collaborate again (Toads and Diamonds, 1996, etc.) in a retelling of a very old Scottish tale. Huck’s text is powerful and sweet, well-matched by Lobel’s theatrically imagined pictures. Three sisters plan their marriages, and the youngest, Peggy Ann, wishes only for a husband who is kind and good—even if he’s the Black Bull of Norroway. Naturally the Black Bull appears and takes her away, but he feeds her and chooses the easiest paths as he carries her on his back. They stop at three castles, owned by the Black Bull’s three brothers, and each gives Peggy Ann a gift to use when “your heart is like to break and then to break again.” When she takes a thorn from the bull’s foot, he’s restored to his true self as the Duke of Norroway, but only at night until he vanquishes the Guardian of the Glen. Peggy Ann is instructed to sit and wait for him without moving, but when she knows that he’s won, her excitement moves her to stand and this makes it impossible for him to locate her. Setting out to find him herself, Peggy Ann is faced with a glass mountain, seven years of apprenticeship, the witch who first placed the Duke under a spell, and the witch’s conniving daughter. In the end, she frees her beloved by perseverance and pluck—as well as the three treasures. The story’s provenance is carefully traced in an author’s note: though set in Norway, Peggy Ann’s black braids and references to food and certain physical features clearly set it in the Scots tradition. Lobel’s watercolor and ink illustrations are gorgeously rich in patterns: plaids and florals, watery swirls, and jagged peaks. Huck’s effort to find “traditional tales that show plucky girls” pays off here. (Picture book/folktale. 7-10)