[~from Amazon] First released in 1966, Mogo's Flute is the story of a Kikuyu boy in Kenya, East Africa. "Mogo lived in a village of round thatched huts. He had not grown tall and strong like other boys because of a thahu -- a spell -- laid on him when he was a baby. He was too frail to share in the work and play of his village, and for a long time he was content just to play his flute, which he loved." At his sister's urging Mogo went to see the "Mundo-Mugo" to have the spell taken off. The wise man told him that "Even with a thahu you are still a member of your tribe. You must take your part in the work and games of your tribe. Otherwise you bring no honor to your ancestors." He was sent away with a riddle to solve: "What is good to have, better to lose, and best to find again?"

About the author: [from the NYT obit: "Hilda van Stockum, an award-winning children’s author and illustrator won honors from the Newbery Medal committee in 1935 for her first book, “A Day on Skates: The Story of a Dutch Picnic.” Based on her own childhood experiences, the book contained illustrations by Ms. van Stockum and a preface by her aunt, Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Ms. Stockum’s later books, which were written for children from the ages of 7 to 12, reflected the wanderings of her own families. “The Cottage at Bantry Bay” (1938) and two sequels were set in Ireland, where she spent part of her childhood. “The Mitchells” (1945) was the first of three books about a family like the one she and her husband reared; they lived in Washington, then moved to Canada.

In the 1960s she again began setting her books in the Netherlands, writing “The Winged Watchman,” about boys who helped the Dutch resistance during World War II, and “The Borrowed House” (1975), about a Jewish child hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

Ms. van Stockum was a painter as well. In 1993 one of her still lifes was chosen to appear on an Irish postage stamp as part of a series honoring contemporary art."