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    Starshine and Sunglow
    Starshine and Sunglow
    Starshine and Sunglow
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Starshine and Sunglow

    By Betty Levin and Jos. A. Smith

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    About this ebook

    Ben, Kate, and Foster create two super scarecrows to protect Mrs. Flint's corn crop from the animals that feed on it, but soon the scarecrows seem to take on a life of their own.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 26, 2010
    ISBN9780062035615
    Starshine and Sunglow
    Author

    Betty Levin

    Betty Levin is the author of many popular books for young people, including The Banished; Look Back, Moss; Away to Me, Moss; Island Bound; Fire in the Wind; and The Trouble with Gramary. Betty Levin has a sheep farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts, where she also raises and trains sheepdogs. In Her Own Words... "I started writing stories almost as soon as I began to read. They were derivative and predictable-as much a way of revisiting characters and places in books I loved as it was a means of self-expression. I don't remember when words and their use became important. In the beginning was the story, and for a long time it was all that mattered. "Even though I always wrote, I imagined becoming an explorer or an animal trainer. This was long before I had to be gainfully employed. It wasn't until after I'd landed in the workplace, first in museum research and then in teaching, that I returned to story writing-this time for my young children. Then a fellowship in creative writing at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College gave me and my storymaking a chance. One affirmation led to another, and now there are books-and some readers. "When I talk with children in schools and libraries, I realize that child readers are still out there. When they get excited about a character or a scene, a new dimension opens for them, a new way of seeing and feeling and understanding. "Of course there is always one child who asks how it feels to be famous and to be recognized in supermarkets. I explain that the only people who recognize me are those who have seen me working my sheep dogs or selling my wool at sheep fairs. That response often prompts another query: Why write books if they don't make you rich and famous? I usually toss that question back at the children. Why do they invent stories? How does story writing make them feel? "Eventually we explore the distinction between wanting to be a writer and needing to write. If we want to write, then we must and will. Whether or not we become published authors, we all have tales to tell and stories to share. Literature can only continue to grow from the roots of our collective experience if children understand that they are born creative and that all humans are myth users and storytellers."

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      Book preview

      Starshine and Sunglow - Betty Levin

      BEFORE

      Every spring, after the frost is out of the ground, Mr. and Mrs. Flint plant a crop of sweet corn. All their neighbors take an interest. So do the red-winged blackbirds, who like to tweak the first green shoots that poke up through the earth. So do the crows, especially later in the summer when the ears grow plump on the stalks. The crows perch on nearby branches to spot the corn; they call to one another in harsh, eager voices, noting the progress of the coming feast. Some crows probe through the green husks as soon as the kernels form.

      But the raccoons bide their time. Only when the kernels are perfectly ripe do they come at night to raid the corn plot. After they have sampled one ear here and one ear there, after they have downed this stalk and that, they leave before daybreak.

      In the morning Mr. and Mrs. Flint pick whatever remains of the good ears. Most of the corn is tossed in the pickup and driven across town to be sold at a farm stand. But some corn is always left in a bushel basket in the shade of an apple tree, where the neighbors on Flint Farm Road can stop to get today’s corn and to leave money for it in the soup can that hangs from the lowest branch.

      Often the children are sent to bring home the corn before the day grows warm. The fresh tender ears are best when kept cool, as everyone on Flint Farm Road can tell you. All the neighbors are experts on sweet corn. How can they go wrong with their daily supply? Who wouldn’t take an interest in the bushel basket under the apple tree and in the corn plot where those green-sheathed ears ripen?

      1

      The three of them had finally settled on something to do this afternoon. As usual Kate and Ben charged ahead. As usual Foster lagged behind. They were the only real children on Flint Farm Road. Kate’s older brothers and Ben’s little sister didn’t count, because they couldn’t or wouldn’t join in any of the children’s projects. Today the three were on their way to let Mrs. Flint know about their favorite kinds of corn. There was probably still time before she went off to buy her seeds.

      Just before they met up with her at her mailbox, Mr. Torpor came slouching out of the woods way down behind the corn plot. Tall and bent, he moved stiffly as he peered about him. Ben and Kate slowed to give him time to greet Mrs. Flint and go on his way. They had a funny feeling about him. His was the only house on Flint Farm Road that was always dark at night when all the others had lights in their windows.

      As Mr. Torpor passed them, he nodded without speaking. He was carrying some kind of pad or book. His field glasses hung from a strap around his neck.

      Mrs. Flint looked up from a letter she was reading. When the children told her why they had come, she shook her head.

      No corn this year, she told them. We’re giving up.

      No corn! exclaimed Ben. It’s our favorite thing.

      Your families can buy other people’s corn at the farm stand, Mrs. Flint said. It just isn’t worth it for us anymore. It’s a losing battle. We can’t fight the critters.

      The children understood that the critters were all those creatures that came uninvited to feed on the crops.

      But you grow enough for the critters, Kate said. She was thinking of the words Mrs. Flint always chanted as she dropped the seeds into the soil:

      One for the blackbird,

      One for the crow,

      One for the raccoon,

      And one to grow.

      Mrs. Flint nodded. But every year the critters keep taking more than their share. No matter how hard we fight, we keep losing.

      It sounds like war, said Ben.

      And so it is, Mrs. Flint told him. First we get the air strikes. Squadrons of red-winged blackbirds. Then come the crows with their sneak attacks. And finally, just when we think we’ve made it to harvest, the raccoons hit us with their slash-and-burn tactics.

      The raccoons burn? exclaimed Kate. How do they do that?

      Mrs. Flint sighed. That’s only in a manner of speaking. What they do, she explained, is ruin what they don’t eat. That’s how they’ve won.

      But they’ll lose, too, Ben argued, because there won’t be any corn for them, either. You’ll lose because you won’t have corn to sell, and we’ll lose because Flint Farm corn is the best corn in the world.

      Maybe so, Mrs. Flint replied, but what’s to be done?

      The children gazed across the road at the big, sloping field of ryegrass. Way up in the far corner, where the bare trees bounded the open land, Mr. Flint’s tractor chugged and rattled as he began to plow the ryegrass into the earth. That was where corn for the cattle was grown.

      What will you feed the cows? asked Kate.

      Oh, we’ll still grow field corn to put in the silo. Raccoons or not, we can’t do without it. But as for the sweet corn … She spread her hands. We just have to cut our losses.

      The children looked over the corn plot with the stubble still showing from last year’s stalks. Then they said good-bye to Mrs. Flint and headed home.

      2

      "Everyone took the corn for granted, said Ben. Kate repeated Mrs. Flint’s words: What’s to be done?"

      We have to get all the neighbors behind Mr. and Mrs. Flint to change their minds.

      Kate glanced up toward Mr. Torpor’s house, the nearest one to Flint Farm. How do we get the grown-ups on our side? Especially, she added, him.

      Ben frowned. Mr. Torpor liked to paint pictures

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