- All Alone (Claire Huchet Bishop novel)
"All Alone" (1953) is a children's novel by
Claire Huchet Bishop , illustrated by Feodor Rojanovsky. It won the 1954Newbery Honor .Plot
Marcel is a "ten-year-old man", sent by his father with their three cows to summer pasture in the French mountains. While he is being trusted with the "family fortune" for the first time, Marcel is even more entrusted with the family creed, which also permeates his village, "Mind your own business". It is a village of friendless strangers, not neighbours. In the mountains, Marcel faces the cold, fear, and loneliness he was not prepared for. But when he hears the yodels of Pierre, a slightly older cowherd boy in the mountains, and their yodeling consoles each other. Then Pierre's cows wander over to Marcel's mountain, and he is faced with a crisis of conscience that pits his antisocial upbringing with his inner sense of righteousness. Deciding to take a risk in returning Pierre's cows, Marcel sets off a chain of events that leads to a revolution in the village.
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