Book Review: Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf, illustrated Robert Lawson

by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson

0440845947, A Special Trumpet Edition (Penguin), © 1938, renewed © 1966 (OP)

9781590172063, New York Review of Books (Random House), $15.95

I found this book in a flea market in Madison, IN. Loving the Munro Leaf/Robert Lawsom combo (and the $1 price tag), I picked it up and read it aloud to my sister on our road trip. We were both laughing at how ridiculous and wonderful this little story is. It’s about a Scotsman (a boy at the beginning) named Wee Gillis and how he has to choose between living with his father’s family in the Highlands or his mother’s family in the Lowlands. I won’t tell you how it ends, except to say, it’s another classic about following your heart and everything working out the way it should. Delightful. 

The paperback I bought is a Special Trumpet Edition book issued by Penguin in 1966. Thank goodness the New York Review of Books has reissued it in a beautiful hardcover edition in 2006. Run out and grab a copy!