When spring arrives, a little canary’s heart fills with a longing to go north.
Author: Kristiina Lähde, Julia Vuori (illustrations)
Finnish original: Arhippa kevään korvalla
Publisher: Teos, 2019
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Fiction
Number of pages: 34 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
The canary Archie and the taxi driver Swisher are having a cushy time in the South. But one day Archie’s heart fills with yearning. The days in the North are getting longer, and soon there will be nightless nights there! It’s time to go home.
The friends set out to follow the light, and they bring a mysterious work of art with them as they go to meet the northern spring. Little Archie realizes that she is part of a great family of birds and that the earth is as small as a grain of millet. But the most important thing she learns is something that’s right in front of her.
“Swisher realized that Archie had migration fever. Deep within her was a longing to leave, to return home – it’s a power that all birds have. Swisher mulled the matter over long into the night. Life in the South was nice. But the North had its good points, too. And although Archie was small, her feelings were enormous.”
Archie in the Spring is the second book about the adventures of Archie the bird and Swisher the taxi driver. A book with humor and a gentle philosophy of life, it tells a story of friendship, travel, a story where a person, or a bird, can find a true home. The first book in the series, Archie Goes South, was published in 2016.
“There are so many things to miss: summer, candy, friends far away. A curator can miss a canary, a taxi driver his coffee break, a cat his fresh herring. You can miss snowballs in the summertime or dandelions on a wintry day. Sometimes we miss things that are right there in front of us, and we just haven’t noticed”
Also available:
Archie in a Tizzy (2021)
Archie Goes South (2016)
About the authors:
Kristiina Lähde
Julia Vuori