THE BIRD OF TIME
Illustrated by Mercer Mayer
Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971
ISBN# 0-690-14425-3

This is a straight-forward original fairy tale in which a miller's son, who has the gift of understanding the speech of animals, finds a bird that can speed time up or slow time down or stop time altogether. With the bird's help, he rescues a princess from a wicked giant. Interestingly, I began writing the story the day I was told my mother had inoperable cancer. When she read the manuscript, just three months before she died, she knew at once what the story was about and told me. "Intimations of mortality, eh?" she said. The pictures by Mayer are simply wonderful, and that princess (clearly Hungarian) looks as if she's been up many too many nights fighting off the wicked giant.

Out of print.

Recording: BIRD OF TIME is told by Richard Standard in his storytelling tape, "Tales of Sun and Time and Tide.