The Girl Who Cried Flowers
The Girl Who Cried Flowers and Other Tales by Jane Yolen is a wonderful collection of 5 of Yolen’s best works. The Girl Who Cried Flowers starts the compilation off; it is a tale of a girl, Olivia who weeps flowers. She is the wonder of the land and people come from all over to get her to make them garlands and bouquets, but all this work means she has to be sad all the time in order to keep crying. One day a man comes to ask for flowers and immediately falls in love with Olivia and orders her to never cry again. He tells her stories and jokes to make her laugh and make her happy. She stops weeping things out of flowers for people until one day an old woman begs for a bouquet for her daughter. When Panos, her husband, finds out he is terribly upset. Olivia flees out of despair and Panos follows the trail of petals to the forrest. When he reaches to touch the pile of petals at the end of the trail he is pricked by a thorn and from his drop of blood on the ground blooms a beautiful olive tree with the face of Olivia in it. Panos lives with the tree until he dies and is buried under it. Yolen captures humor, magic and sorrow in her short story about Olivia. It flows like poetry. The story is only enhanced by the simple, yet detailed ink illustrations done by David Palladini. I found myself looking forward to each of them as they came up.
The other stories in the collection include Dawn Strider, The Weaver of Tomorrow, The Lad Who Stared Everyone Down, and Silent Bianca. I think my favorite of all these was Silent Bianca. It was similar to The Girl Who Cried flowers in that it was the story of a girl with a particular talent, for Bianca it was speaking in icicles. I thought the image of people having to melt her words in order hear them was cool.
Jane Yolen was born in New York City February 11, 1939). She moved around with her family as a child and received her bachelor’s degree from Smith College. Her first book was published in 1971 and it was entitled The Bird of Time. She has won many awards for her stories as well as her poetry. She also has written a lot of science fiction including Xanadu and Wizard’s Hall, which she claims was the basis for Harry Potter. Yolen has an elegant style and way with words that make her stories flow seamlessly. While they are modern stories, they hold something of the past as well.
