The Scarecrow's Dance Book

Now truth be told I do have some serious personal issues with The Scarecrow's Dance. Yes, Bagram Ibatouline's accompanying illustrations are (and as usual) lushly descriptively magical, Jane Yolen's narrative presents itself as sweetly and poignantly lyrical, and I do indeed to a certain extent also totally consider the general message shown in The Scarecrow's Dance of giving up one's pleasure (in this case dancing) for one's duty and job a for the most part a generally good, acceptable, if not actually important and necessary consideration (that the scarecrow finally realises he has an obligation to protect the family's crops and not to simply dance the night away, leaving the fields unguarded and prone to especially avian predation). However, there is, at least for me, an absolutely essential element that it annoyingly and infuriatingly MISSING from both Jane Yolen's text and Bagram Ibatouline's pictures in The Scarecrow's Dance, namely, that once the crops have been harvested, the scarecrow should be both verbally and illustratively depicted as once again joyously (and with no guilt whatsoever now) engaging in his dance, that both duty and pleasure are interlinked and of equal significance. For with the storyline of The Scarecrow's Dance simply ending with the scarecrow back at his post, having totally given up his idea of dancing, it sure does seem to and for me, or at least it might seem that the scarecrow should NEVER EVER dance, which I personally consider rather sad at best (and also majorly potentially problematic), as truly, once the crops have been gathered and harvested, the scarecrow really should have every right and opportunity in the world to dance, to frolic with gay abandon. And basically and in my opinion, the ending of The Scarecrow's Dance therefore does not only feel rather abrupt and incomplete in and of itself (and leaves me with real feelings of sadness for the scarecrow), in a worst case scenario, it could actually even give younger children the understanding that fun, that dancing, is not only secondary to duty, but that it should be rejected out of hand, that dancing is somehow unacceptable and inappropriate.

And yes indeed, I would even go so far as to say that the ending, that the fact the scarecrow is not ever shown with a sense of duty completed retuning to his joyful dancing once his duty and job of protecting the crops has been completed, that really does pretty well ruin much of The Scarecrow's Dance for me on a personal and emotional level.