The Little Island

By Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrated by Leonard Weisgard

Copyright 1946

Winner of Caldecott Medal in 1947

 Like many of Margaret Wise Brown’s books, The Little Island has a pleasant, peaceful cadence.  It is the story of a small island and its flora and fauna going through the changes of the seasons.  It departs from being just a naturalist’s tale when a small kitten comes to the island for a picnic.

The kitten remarks on the small size of the little land, “This little Island is as little as big is Big”.  The island disagrees and answers back.  With the help of the fish, the kitten learns that all land is one land under the sea. The kitten also learns that faith is “to believe what I tell you about what you don’t know”

He has learned the secret that deep down just as the little island is part of all land – we are all connected to each other.

Nights and days came and passed

And summer and winter

and the sun and the wind

and the rain.

And it was good to be a little Island.

A part of the world

and a world of its own

all surrounded by the bright blue sea.