Days of the Blackbird

Beloved illustrator Tomie dePaola retells and embellishes this northern Italian tale. Per the author's note the story stems from a real Italian mountain village (which dePaola depicts on the title page) where the last three days of January are the coldest of the year. As the story goes, the doves would roost in the chimneys to keep warm and this turned them black. DePaola's retelling also takes…