CM Magazine: The True Meaning of Crumbfest.

________________ CM . . . . Volume VI Number 15 . . . . March 31, 2000

The True Meaning of Crumbfest.

David Weale. Illustrated by Dale McNevin.
Charlottetown, PEI: The Acorn Press (P.O. Box 22024, C1A 9J2), 1999.
28 pp., pbk., $7.95.
ISBN 0-9698606-4-1.

Subject Headings:
Mice-Juvenile fiction.
Curiosity-Juvenile fiction.
Christmas stories.

Grades 1-4 / Ages 6-9.
Review by Joan Payzant.

**** /4

excerpt:

Eckhart's grandfather, a skinny bent old mouse named Tomis, had lived longer than any of the other mice. He had celebrated three Crumbfests, and Eckhart asked him once why it happened every year.
Old Tomis said he didn't know. He said it was a mystery. When Eckhart asked him a second time he twitched his tail in annoyance. "Don't ask so many questions," he said crossly.

David Weale, a professor at University of Prince Edward Island, is a story teller and a writer. This story was first published in his 1994 book, An Island Christmas Reader. Both Weale and "Fireside Al" Maitland have read The True Meaning of Crumbfest on CBC radio programs where it generated tremendous listener response. Next, the tale was made into an animated television Christmas special, and now appears as an attractively illustrated children's book.

Eckhart, the young hero of the story, belongs to a family of mice that spend their summers outside, but, as soon as the weather gets cold, they move inside, living in the dark, cool walls of a farmhouse. Life there is not very pleasant, but suddenly every year in late December there is an abundance of crumbs for the mice to eat. Even Eckhart's grandfather doesn't know why this happens, but curious Eckhart is determined to solve the mystery of this event, known to the mice as Crumbfest. And he does!

A lovely addition to Christmas books for libraries and families.

Highly Recommended.

Joan Payzant is a former teacher-librarian from Dartmouth, N.S.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - March 31, 2000.